


Out of the Black

by smolassassinchildx (smolassassinchild)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Firefly
Genre: Crossover, Domestic, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-19
Updated: 2010-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-08 03:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolassassinchild/pseuds/smolassassinchildx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just before the jump to Earth, the Fleet comes into contact with a small transport ship of non-Colonial origins. (AU at the end of Revelations)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Out of the Black---Old Version](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839) by [smolassassinchildx (smolassassinchild)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolassassinchild/pseuds/smolassassinchildx). 



> I wrote the original Out of the Black over a year ago, and looking back was not pleased with it at all, there was so much I wanted to do with the story that I just didn't pull off and so I decided to rewrite it, do more justice to both of the stories I wanted to tell. The original story is still archived here at AO3 and will remain here in my works. If you have read the original, I welcome you to read this new version of the story as it does take a different direction from the original. Beta'd by taragel.
> 
> This is a completed work, with one chapter being posted every sunday over on LJ,I posted three chapters at once to catch up here.

“Think they’re cylons?”

“They can’t all be cylons. There’s only one left. Supposedly.”

  


“Can you believe we’ve been taking orders from a toaster this whole time?”

  


“It’s like some sick joke.”

“Maybe Cally found out about Chief. Maybe that’s why she offed herself.”

“If I found out my husband was a toaster, I’d probably jump out an airlock, too.”

“You think they’re from Earth?”

“I dunno, I heard they got quiet when the President asked them about Earth.”

  


“Where’d you hear that?”

  


“Dee. She was on duty when they showed up. Patched the hail through.”

“Can’t believe we didn’t just shoot ‘em down.”

“Sensors showed the ship has no weapons.”

  


“So?”

  


“I still don’t like it. Look what happened when we found _Pegasus_, and we _knew_ them. No offense, Narcho.”

The rec room’s packed—every seat taken and more people standing than sitting. She keeps to herself, like always these days, but even Kara can’t ignore the snatches of conversations from the tables around the room. The officers are giving off waves of tension and spewing half-baked bullshit since no one really knows anything. Kara gets the impression that one hatch shut too strongly would set off the entire crew like a spark in a barrel of gunpowder.

She drags her thumb over the rim of the beer bottle she’s been nursing and runs through a mental list of the insanity that started this morning and has yet to stop.

_Truce with the cylons? Check._

Finding out the XO, President’s aide, Chief of the Deck, and your husband are all cylons. Check.

Hailed a small ship—not Colonial, nor identified Cylon vessel—coming their way in the absolute middle of nowhere. Check.

It’s official. This day cannot get any more frakking surreal than it already is. And the day isn’t over yet.

The fleet was getting ready to make the jump to Earth when an unidentified ship showed up on DRADIS—that’s about all that anyone knows right now, won’t know more ‘til the President and the Admiral meets with the ship’s captain. All Kara knows is that it’s really frakking inconvenient—that, and the fact that she’s getting a throbbing headache listening to the cacophony.

She shoves herself out of her seat. Putting one foot in front of the other is all Kara can do to keep herself focused. She has enough of her own crap in her head right now; she doesn’t need anyone else’s trying to claim space.

Right. Left. Straight ahead. Right turn. She isn’t even sure where the hell she is going, but she ends up outside the hatch to the Agathon family’s quarters. She used to come visit him without a thought, but they haven’t really just talked since before the _Demetrius_—hell, since before she died. Kara hesitates a moment before she raises her hand and knocks against the metal.

“Hang on,” she hears Karl’s voice call out a few seconds before he opens the door. He has Hera balanced precariously on one hip and a prominent green streak of mashed algae across his cheek. Kara fleetingly realizes she must have interrupted mealtime.

Before she can say anything—excuse herself? She isn’t sure—Hera wriggles her way out of her dad’s grip and drops a few feet to the floor. The look of panic on Helo’s face fades away when she doesn’t cry—just scrambles up and ducks back into the room. His gaze follows his daughter as he steps aside to let Kara into the room. “Come on in,” he says, only half paying attention.

It isn’t until he sees Hera settling down at the table to color, that he really takes a look at her. One eyebrow arches as he takes in the sight of her and he’s silent for a moment. “Long day?”

Her brain comes up with about five different taunting retorts, but it doesn’t really feel like the place for that anymore. “Yeah.”

Kara crosses her arms over her chest and casts a glance around the quarters. Rack for two, crib for the kid, table and chairs, over on the desk there’s a photo of Karl and Sharon both in their dress grays—the whole place looks so domestic, just 1.5 kids and a picket fence off from the frakking Colonial Dream. Of course, she’s pretty sure that the dream isn’t supposed to have a cylon in the picture. Not like her marriage has been anything near picture perfect—hell, it’s barely a marriage at all; more like denial and lies, and apparently not just on her side.

She doesn’t even realize she is staring at the photo until Karl speaks. “Sharon’s not here right now.” Kara nearly jumps ten feet at the sound of his voice.

She spins around to see him standing just inches behind her, his hand frozen in mid-air; he’d been reaching for her shoulder. Does he know? Frak, half the ship has to know by now—if not the whole thing. She wonders if people had been placing bets.

Helo’s hand drops and he goes on. “She flew Roslin and the Old Man and some marines over to _Colonial One_ for the meeting with… whoever it is on that ship. Seems like that’s all anyone is talking about right now.” There is a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. She still can’t quite tell if he knows, but if he does, he isn’t pushing. Good to know that, after everything, when the universe turns itself upside-down, Karl is still Karl.

She sinks down onto a chair and lets out a deep sigh she didn’t know she had in her. “Right. That. How could I forget?” Kara runs a hand through her hair, getting caught in a knot along the way. She makes a mental note to cut it because it’s too much of a hassle like this. She stares up at the ceiling, not really talking to him, more talking at him. “I guess those signals in my Viper were coming from this ship, not Earth.”

Helo sits by the table, pulls Hera onto his lap. She drags her paper and crayons with her and continues to scribble away. He asks, “You think maybe they’re from Earth?”

Her eye roll ends in a glare.

Karl shrugs. “What? It makes the most sense. We’re on the path to Earth, and we meet an oncoming ship. Logically, that’s where they came from, and that means we did it.” His eyes light up, and there’s a grin on his face. She knows he’s just speculating like everyone else is but somehow it sounds better—more possible somehow-coming from him. “We found the thirteen tribe. Mission accomplished.”

Kara realizes that all she wants is for it to be true, but she can’t ignore the sinking feeling in her gut. She remembers the rumors about the others going silent at the mention of Earth. This isn’t right, this doesn’t add up. “I just have a bad feeling about this,” she says, shaking her head “I can’t explain it.”

Hera glances up from her drawing and, with a very earnest look on her face, puts a small hand on Kara’s knee. She looks like she’s trying as hard as her father is to get Kara to just look on the bright side. _Must run in the family_, she thinks as the corner of her mouth quirks upwards. Shame to let all their effort go to waste. “Got any cards?” she asks Karl.

“Yeah?” He quirks an eyebrow; she’s lost him on this train of thought.

“Wanna play a few hands? It’ll kill the wait,” Kara offers with a shrug, and looks at the little girl, “And I think it’s about time Hera, here, learned how to play triad.”

Helo looks at her with a look of horror on his face. “You want to teach my two-year-old to gamble?”

Kara smirks. “Get her started young enough and she’ll be a real shark when she’s older.”

He shakes his head, running a hand through his daughter’s hair. “Auntie Kara’s a bad influence.” But he laughs, sets Hera on the floor, and goes to grab his deck of cards. He glances over his shoulder as he digs through the desk drawer. “Think these new people know how to play cards?”

She shrugs. “Guess we’ll find out.”

====================

Lee’s standing in the hangar bay of _Colonial One _when the shuttle from the unfamiliar ship arrives. He pulls a bit at the knot of his tie as he watches the hatch open and a man and woman step out onto the deck. Both of them have a rather peculiar style of dress. He notes the woman’s red leather vest over a brown button-down shirt, a black bootlace tied around her neck; the man wears a red shirt and a long brown coat that sweeps down to his calves. Both sport boots that come up to their knees and a gunbelt around their waist, and neither of them looks too happy as a pair of marines step forward and ask them to hand over any firearms they’re carrying as a safety precaution.

The woman says something to the man in a language Lee cannot understand—sounds like a curse—as she hands over her sidearm. It looks slightly out of date, although maybe it’s top of the line for their world’s technology. As the weapon leaves her hands, she bows her head close to her companion’s. Lee’s just able to catch the words she mutters. “Feeling safer already, sir.” Her tone is dry, sarcastic, and indicates anything but.

“Yeah, me too.” The man casts an appraising look around the deck once the marines have relieved him of his weapons. “Definitely not Alliance, though.” Lee recognizes the man’s voice as the one that came over the wireless in CIC when they hailed the non-Colonial ship.

A marine gives Lee a nod and he steps forward, doesn’t extend a hand towards the newcomers, keeps both of them planted in his pockets. He opens his mouth to speak, but it’s the man who makes the first statement.

“Wasn’t expectin’ such a warm welcome.” He flicks his gaze to each of the marines in turn before turning his focus on Lee. “Thought this meetin’ was supposed to be all friendly-like.”

“You always bring weapons with you to a_ friendly_ meeting?” Lee queries, eyebrow raised.

“Safety precaution,” the man replies.

Lee gives a slow nod. “Well as long as things stay friendly, I don’t think you’ll be needing those safety precautions.” He’s pretty sure that at least one of them is still carrying a concealed weapon, probably both; trust is something he’s in very short supply of today—their guests don’t seem to have much of it either.

He steps forward, introduces himself as _Lee Adama, Caprican Representative to the Quorum of Twelve_. The blank looks he receives reminds him that a common language in this moment means nothing. The silence only lasts a few seconds before the man introduces himself as he had over the wireless. “Captain Malcolm Reynolds.” He gestures to the woman. “This here is my first mate Zoë Washburn.”

She nods.

Silence again.

Mal claps his hands once and fixes his gaze on Lee once more. “So,” he says. “Take us to your leader.” He grins a bit as he turns to his first mate. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“Very clever, sir,” she replies in that same dry tone.

Lee raises an eyebrow. “Follow me.”

Mal and Zoë follow as Lee leads them up towards the President’s quarters—former quarters, really, she seems to be spending more nights in the Admiral’s quarters than her own, and there’s a mental image that goes with the fact that Lee really does not need to conjure. When they reach the press room, the usual mob of reporters are waiting for them and for the first time Mal and Zoë look grateful to have the marines escorting them. When they’re finally able to push their way through the swarm, fending off microphones as they go, the President and the Admiral are waiting for them.

Mal casts a look over his shoulder back towards the press room, eyes wide, almost shell-shocked. “_Da xiang bao zha shi de la du zi!_ What the _hell _was that?”

“You’ll have to forgive them. Finding your ship is very big news to our people.” Roslin rises from her seat; he feels a pang of sadness in his gut at the way she needs to grip the edge of her desk for balance.

Lee introduces the newcomers by name, introduces his father and Laura as Admiral Adama and President Roslin, and Laura extends her hand to Mal—she still plays the part of president well—tells him it’s a pleasure to put a face to the name. He takes her hand without apprehension in his gesture. “President?” he asks. “As in, you were chosen in a free election by your people, all democratic-like?”

Lee watches the look that passes between Roslin and his dad. Their shift of power hadn’t been the most democratic but the people’s choice had turned into a living nightmare. When she turns back to Mal she shifts her stance, taking an offensive position. “I was forty-third in the line of succession when the President and the other forty-two were killed in the attack on our home worlds, along with casualties of approximately fifty billion people.”

Reynolds’s hand drops away, eyes wide, and expression sorrowful. “My condolences.”

Roslin gestures for their guests to take a seat, as she resumes her own next to the Admiral. Lee leans against the wall, watching as Zoë sits stiff and straight, while Mal adopts a more relaxed position, his knee crossed over his ankle. “Fifty billion people?” he drawls. “You know, I’ve been out to the edge of the black a few times. Someone told me there were another fifty billion people out there, I would’ve reckoned them ready for the bug house.”

“Now it’s just the few of us left, around forty thousand,” Adama says.

“That sounds like a fascinatin’ story.” Mal gives a tilt of his head, like he could see a lie coming off them if he looks hard enough. “Since we’re takin’ such a _friendly_ approach to this little meetin’, ya’ll mind indulgin’ me with it?”

“Perhaps later,” Roslin says. “Right now we have a more important matter at hand. We’ve been looking for Earth for the past three years, and you seem to know something about it.”

Mal leans back in his seat, fully intending on using the only bargaining tool he has. “Indulge me.”

Lee catches Roslin’s irritated glance toward his father before she goes on to summarize the invention of the cylons, listens to his father discuss the First Cylon War and the forty years of peace that followed, and the day they took their revenge. The events they cover from that point forward are less detailed, too hard to go into. Reynolds listens intently to Roslin’s tale—delivered with such a professional detachment, Lee wonders how she manages because he’s fighting the slow burning of anger in his gut just listening. He might not be the CAG anymore, but he still remembers each turn of the story by the number of pilots lost.

Something about Mal’s posture changes, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “That’s a real tragedy,” is his only response.

The Admiral seems to have picked up on the shift as well. He sits forward a bit and studies the pair intently. “You two are former military yourselves, aren’t you?”

An appreciative grin forms on Mal’s face. “Keen observational skills you got there, Admiral.” Out of the corner of his eye, Lee notices Zoë’s hand drifting towards the bootlace tied around her neck.

The motion doesn’t seem to be lost on his father, either. “It seems you have quite the tale of your own.”

When neither Reynolds nor Washburn seem to be forthcoming with information, Lee remembers their first words upon boarding. “When you arrived on _Colonial One_, you mentioned the Alliance. More specifically that we are not Alliance. What exactly—”

“Get much closer to the central planets and you’ll find out,” Zoë warns. Lee feels an uncomfortable chill settle in the room.

Mal uncrossed his legs, all his previous air of nonchalance evaporating. “If we’re gonna talk about the Alliance, I guess it’s best we start with talkin’ about Earth-that-Was.”

_Earth-that-Was_. The way Mal tells it, Earth was gone hundreds of years before the attack on the Colonies—hundreds of years before the cylons were created. Planet was used up, resources gone, and its inhabitants left with no other choice but to go out, seek new planets, and terraform them to try to start life anew. A few core planets began to develop a centralized government that eventually sought to unite all the planets under one rule. There were those that believed that each planet ought to be free to rule themselves, in opposition to a single ruling body.

War broke out.  
Freedom lost.

Rim planets got the short end of the stick—ruled over by corrupt governors with citizens having no say in the central government—while the core planets reaped the economic benefits and social comforts of the ruling class.

“Now,” Mal shoved himself to his feet, arms folded across his chest. “Bein’ on the losin’ side of this battle, you can assume I’m a little bit biased. Got an ambassador on my ship who can give you a whole ’nother side of the story. Either way, you can keep goin’, let the Alliance find you. Hell, you can seek them out your own selves, but I don’t reckon they’re going to take too kindly to 40,000 refuges just showin’ up out of the black.”

Three years spent searching and this is the world they find—this is what was left of humanity. Lee stared out into the middle of room, not addressing anyone in particular. “So, this is the end of the line…”

“Mr. Adama, you’re not seriously suggesting we settle _here_?” Roslin’s firm glare doesn’t shake him.

His voice doesn’t waver, even as his stomach churns at the thought. “You think we’re going to keep going after this? It could be another five, ten, maybe twenty years before we find another habitable planet, and the way things are going right now, _Galactica_ isn’t going to make it another five months. Gods only know how the Fleet will keep going after that.”

His father glances up at him from his seat. “You can’t be serious, son.”

“What other choice do we have? Is it really that different from the Colonial Government? A group of planets united by one government? It’s not like every colony prospered before the attacks. Why do you think we had people like Zarek and groups like the Sagittaron Freedom Movement?”

Roslin rises from her seat, shoulders back. The dim light in the room glints dangerously off her glasses. “At least we have the Quorum. If we subject our people to this world they will lose their voice entirely.”

“All due respect, Madame _President_,” Lee watches her stiffen under his scrutiny. “But the people haven’t had a voice in the fleet for a long time.”

She recoils slightly, but when she speaks again her voice is pure ice. “And what exactly do you propose, Mr. Adama?”

Lee casts an uncomfortable glance towards Reynolds and Washburn, the pair having watched the entire exchange with an obvious scrutiny. He clears his throat softly, ignoring the harsh look his father gives him and turns his sole attention back to Roslin. “We give the people back their voice, and we let them vote.”

He hopes that she’ll remember a time when he held a gun to the XO’s head for her sake, for the sake of the people, for the sake of what’s right. Hopes she knows he has the Fleet’s survival at heart. Though her face doesn’t soften, Roslin calls for a meeting of the Quorum the next day to discuss dissemination of information and voting procedure. She turns to Mal and requests to meet with him and his ambassador in the morning, before gathering with the Quorum, and—somewhat to Lee’s surprise—he readily agrees.

Handshakes are exchanged and Mal excuses himself, leaves the room with Zoë at his heels, going back the way they came. As they disappear through the now-empty pressroom, Lee catches the last whispers of their conversation, before they fall out of earshot.

“Think it’s wise getting involved in their politics, sir?”

“Three days ago, I had a bounty hunter sneak on board my ship. I’m thinkin’ it’s best we lay low for a little while.”

“You know this ain’t our fight.”

=====================

“Three on a run,” Kara announces, laying her cards out on the table with a flourish.

Helo whispers something in Hera’s ear before she smacks her cards down on the table. “Full co-ors,” she says before turning up to glance at her father.

Kara leans forward to examine the toddler’s hand, before turning an incredulous raised eyebrow towards Karl’s beaming face. “Your kid cheats, Karl.”

“Nah, she’s just that good.”

Hera sweeps forward, gathering up her winnings—a small pile of crayons that they’ve been using to bet. Apparently bored, she wiggles off her father’s lap, takes her spoils, and sits down to start drawing again.

“Looks like it’s just you and me,” Kara says as she starts shuffling the cards again, she has to admit this is the most relaxed she’s felt since… well, longer than she cares to recall.

She’s in the middle of dealing out the next hand when the hatch swings open and Sharon steps through, letting her hair out of its ponytail. “What’s going on in here?” she asks.

“Oh, I’m just about to kick Starbuck’s butt in another round of triad,” Karl says, turning his face up to hers.

Sharon bends down and plants a quick kiss on his lips. “Is that so?”

“He wishes,” Kara says, grinning at her hand.

“No, really,” Karl insists. “I think she’s losing her edge. _Hera _beat her during the last round. I open with one red.” He puts a crayon down on the middle of the table.

“I’m telling you, that kid cheats.” It takes a second longer than it should to register, but Athena’s back and that means the meeting is over. “Hey, how did things go over there?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t get to listen in,” she says, her tone frosty as she turns away to pick up her daughter.

Kara suddenly feels as fidgety as the toddler. Her fingers itch to do anything, so she plays with a tear in the edge of one card, and sets a crayon down in the middle of the table. “I see your red and raise you one blue.”

_Pass the word. Captain Thrace report to the C Deck Wardroom. Captain Thrace to the C Deck Wardroom.  
_  
Kara lays her cards face down on the table and gets to her feet. “Well, it’s been fun.” She’s barely out into the corridor before Helo catches up to her, a hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know if it’s worth anything, but I don’t think he knew. Sam.”

She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. _Frak_. Of course Karl knew, known him so long he can probably read her like a book. She shifts her weight back to the first foot. “What?”

“I don’t think he knew what he was. He led two resistance movements against the cylons. Why would he have done that if he knew he was one of them?”

She doesn’t know why Sam did what he had—might’ve been a cylon trick, trying to get close to her or something; might’ve been any of a hundred different reasons—but she doesn’t really feel like playing that guessing game right now. “You’re right. I don’t know if it’s worth anything.” She turns on her heel, leaves Helo with his family, and continues on to the wardroom.

When she crosses the threshold, the room is empty save for Laura Roslin. “Madame President.” She’s not sure why the frak the President would want to see her right now, but she gets the feeling it’s nothing good. She stands several feet back, stance wide, hands clasped behind her back, watching as the older woman removes her glasses and sets them down on the table in front of her.

“I’m sure you’re aware that we’ve encountered a small transport ship of non-Colonial origins,” she begins. Kara nods. “The Admiral and I met with their crew to ascertain what they knew about Earth.”

The word makes Kara’s heart jump into her throat, makes it hard for her to talk. “And what did they say?”

Roslin folds her hands on the table. “We’re somewhere between several star systems, each containing several habitable planets and moons, but there is no Earth; not anymore.”

Kara’s heart sinks right back down into her stomach, and all she wants is to get off this frakking roller coaster. “If there’s no Earth, then what the _hell_ did I see?”

“I couldn’t begin to tell you, Captain.” Her voice isn’t a reprimand, in fact she sounds about as confused as Kara feels. “I don’t know what any of us saw. Back in the Tomb of Athena, I was so sure that was what we were going to find.” She adds, with a hint of bitterness, “The promised land.”

Kara realizes for the first time that Roslin hasn’t asked her here for accusations, she’s asked her here to mourn with her. She pulls up a chair and sits down across from the President. She hears the hybrid’s words echoing in her head. Her laugh is hollow and humorless. “I guess this is the end, then.”

 

\--To Be Continued--


	2. Chapter 2

_Serenity Shuttle, you are cleared for landing. _

It’s been a hell of a long time since Mal has had to report at 0800 for anything. He can’t particularly recall liking it very much then, possibly even less now. He stands at Inara’s shoulder, even as she twists in her seat to look at him, and tells him to _please_ stop.

“What?” Mal shrugs. “What exactly am I doin’ that is so troublesome?”

“You’re hovering.” She turns back to the controls, focused on bringing her shuttle in for a landing in the unfamiliar bay.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he says, digging his hands into his pockets. “I just wanna get a look at our new friends’ ship, is all. It’s fascinating.”

Inara looks like she’s about to protest when Kaylee pushes forward, crowding into the last of the small space around Inara’s seat. Her eyes are bright and wide, her jaw hanging open. Mal nods towards her, flicking his gaze to Inara. _See what I mean? _

Minutes later, when the shuttle’s hatch opens, Mal steps out into a sea of blindingly orange jumpsuits and metallic olive flight suits. It doesn’t seem to matter much what they were doing before their shuttle arrived, but it seems all anyone wants is to get a good look at him and the chunk of his crew that he brought with them.

Mal hears a man’s voice shout “Come on everyone, you’ve got work to do.” He turns to see a wiry-looking man clap his hands once and the others go about their work. When the crowd parts, he sees Lee Adama wearing the same suit from yesterday.

“Good to see a familiar face,” Mal says, approaching the representative. “Almost didn’t recognize you without your squad of marines.”

He gives a short nod. “Captain Reynolds. Welcome to _Galactica. _” Lee’s manner is as guarded as it had been the day before. Can’t exactly blame him—Mal’s never really gotten along with government types and he supposes it doesn’t matter what end of the ’verse they’re from. He watches as Lee’s gaze travels from him to Zoë with another nod of acknowledgment, and then towards the other three who have emerged from the shuttle.

“This here is Inara,” Mal says as she extends a hand.

Lee takes her hand, shaking lightly. “You’re the ambassador Mal told us about?”

The glower she turns on Mal is sharp and fast and he offers only a shrug in reply. “It seemed like the best introduction. Didn’t feel like explaining, your, you know… job. And you are a government trained…_representative_… of a kind.” He clears his throat. “You know, I’m bein’ a hell of a lot nicer than I normally am on the subject. Thought you might ‘ppreciate that.”

“I have no shame in what I do; you seem to be the only one here who does.”

Lee’s gaze flicks back and forth between the two, one eyebrow starting to creep upwards. Mal offers by way of explanation, “See, professionally her job is to take care of the wealthy and powerful. In bed.” Inara looks like she would hit him if they weren’t with their present company. “But it really is a _highly_ respected position.” He shakes his head and points out the rest of his crew in turn. “This is Simon Tam—resident medic on my ship—and Kaylee, our mechanic.”

The doc steps forward, shakes Lee’s hand. Kaylee doesn’t seem to take much notice of the introduction, her eyes are wide and shining with that kid-in-a-candy-store look at she watches the flurry of deck activity.

“If you’ll all just follow me,” Lee says, turning to lead them through yet another new ship.

“What about the shiny government ship ya’ll had us on yesterday,” Mal said, keeping step with the shorter man. “Any reason this meetin’ need take place on a warship?”

“Our Chief Medical Officer is the President’s primary care physician at the moment,” he replies. “She’s been living aboard _Galactica_ for medical reasons. Based on her condition this morning, we decided it was best to hold the meeting in one of the wardrooms here.”

The sentence certainly seemed to pique Simon’s attention. “The President is ill?”

Lee’s lips set in a grim line and he keeps on walking forward. So intent, Mal muses, that he fails to notice they’ve lost one member of the group.

======================

Galen’s not supposed to be down here, guess no one trusts a toaster on the hangar deck, even though he’s worked here, alongside them all for years. He isn’t sure he really gives a flying frak right now—what the hell are they going to do? Stick him in the brig? Wouldn’t that just be exactly what he needed right now? One more thing to add another punchline to the sick cosmic joke that his life has become.

It doesn’t matter right now too much—when he’s surrounded by the familiar smell of engine grease and tylium fuel and everything that used to make his life feel normal. Seems like Laird is doing a good job keeping the deck running smoothly, everyone in their place doing their job.

Except for one glaring incongruity.

Sticking out from underneath one Raptor, he can see a pair of legs covered in what are distinctly non-military-issue coveralls. For a moment, he wonders if Laird the Civvie can’t tell the difference after all. Galen shakes his head, crossing the deck in long, sure strides. He snaps at the intruder in the best Chief voice he can muster. “What the frak are you doing in here? This is no place for civilians!”

The owner of the legs shimmies out from underneath the Raptor, gets to her feet, wipes smears of grease onto her coveralls with a bright smile on her face—not deterred at all by the edge in his voice. “Sorry, mister. Curiosity got the better of me, ’s all.”

_Great_, he thinks getting on his knees and sliding on his back to check the undercarriage. “You can’t just come and mess around with military equipment. Do you have any idea what kind of damage you could’ve caused? People’s lives depend on this equipment and—I had Figurski working on this for weeks.” He blinks hard, remembers that this Raptor has been out of commission since before he had been demoted. The undercarriage had taken some hits, and most of the connections had seemed to have massive, irreparable structural damage. He doesn’t know how she’d done it, but every connection is now jerry-rigged back together and it looks like it should be able to work.

Tyrol slides out from underneath and stares up at her. “How did you do that?” He glances back at the ship and then to her. “You’ve worked with this kind of vessel before?” She reaches out her hand to him and helps him to his feet. _She’s got a good grip_, he thinks.

“Heck, no,” she says with a shake of her head.

“Then how did you—?” He looks back and forth between her and the Raptor and the woman just shrugs.

“Machines got a way of talkin’ to me.” There’s even a little bit of a twinkle in her eye as she says it. “My daddy always said I had a natural talent. Used to work for him for a while and now I work for Mal.” She holds her hand out to him again. “Kaylee Frye,” she says.

She has to be one of them—one of the people from the Bug as people have taken to calling it. Sort of fitting for the small ship that showed up out of nowhere and seems to be obnoxiously hanging around the fleet. Hell, the thing even looks like some kind of insect. He shakes his head and shakes her hand. “Galen Tyrol.” He glances around. “How did you get over here anyway?”

“Flew over on a shuttle with the Cap’n and Simon and Zoë and ‘Nara, but I uh… I got kinda lost.” A slightly sheepish expression crosses her face, hands digging into her pockets. “But you look like you know your way, so why don’ you show me what you’ve got to see’ round here.” She nudges him with her elbow, a wide and eager grin crossing her face, and. gods help him, there’s something about her smile that’s really infectious.

He casts a wary look over his shoulder. “You know, I’d love to but, uh, I’m not actually supposed to be down here either.” He gives a slight shrug, as her eyes narrow slightly—not in anger, more like she’s studying him.

“And just what kinda trouble did you get in, mister?” she asked.

He brushes a hand over the back of his head. “That’s… kind of a long story.”

“Well I figure the others are all gonna be busy with their meetin’ type thing for a while, so I got plenty of time.”

She rocks back on her heels a bit and keeps just looking at him. He drops his hands to his sides and offers, “Do you… want to go get a drink or something?”

She nods eagerly and the two of them head off to Joe’s Bar. Galen ignores the looks he gets for daring to show his face, he’s gotten used to them. Kaylee doesn’t even seem to notice, just talks excitedly about the “_wait, what’s it called again?” “It’s a Raptor.” “Raptor. Right. _” They sit together at the bar and she asks him again what the long story is. Under most circumstances he’s pretty sure he’d need to down a couple of shots before he could even start to talk about his dead wife, but talking to Kaylee is surprisingly easy. She doesn’t judge him, doesn’t look at him with pity, just sits and listens and when it’s all out there—all except the cylon part, he’s not sure she’d know how to deal with that—he feels surprisingly lighter than he did before.

Over the next round, she tells him all about _Serenity_—her home, her girl. She tells him every detail of the engine room that he could imagine and then some, never once asks if she’s boring him, and that’s okay because she isn’t at all. “Sounds like an amazing ship,” he says.

“You have no idea.” She grins. “Wanna come check her out? I guess we’ll be hangin’ around here for a while. You could come over and I could show you around.”

“Next time I manage to grab some leave,” he says. “I’d love to.”

Things get quiet for a while, comfortably so, but still quiet. It strikes him as strange since she hasn’t stopped chattering really since he met her. “What are you thinking about?”

“You,” she says point blank. “There’s somethin’ different about you. But I can’t quite put my finger on it.” Giggling, she taps her finger against his nose as if to prove a point. She blinks twice and then her eyes go wide. “I think I figured it out.” She sits back on the barstool a bit stirring her drink.

“Figured out what?” he asks, his stomach starting to feel like lead.

“I said earlier that machines got a way of talkin’ to me.” She leans over the bar and motions for him to do the same, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And you, Galen, are some kinda machine.” She says it with a smile that goes straight to her eyes and it nearly knocks him off his bar stool. The secret’s out, but it doesn’t mean he’s come to like it any more. Whereas everyone else in the bar keeps giving him the stink eye since he walked in, she’s looking at him like it’s the greatest thing in the worlds.

Galen sits up a bit straighter in his seat. He takes a deep breath and looks at her. “I’m a cylon.”

“Cylon,” she repeats with a slight tilt of her head. Something determined in her voice like she’s trying out the word to see how it works. After a moment, the smile is back. “Shiny.”

====================

Simon can’t help but think it’s unfair to make such an unwell woman conduct this kind of circus. Aside from the self-righteous, consistently contrary politicians that seem to make up their government, several people who appear to be members of the press have shown up and are circling like vultures waiting for her to drop. The whole thing is starting to make him sick.

Over the course of more hours than he cares to count, the points of the Unification War and the Alliance government’s takeover are belabored again and again. He is not prepared for the barrage of rather insulting questions that follow his statement that he had supported Unification following Mal’s tale of fighting for the Independents. Inara faces much of the same scrutiny. After what seems like an interminable length of time, it’s finally decided that no further move will be made until a solid plan is voted on and approved.

When the wardroom clears, Simon stares glances back at the door. “Well that was… that certainly was.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Inara says. Despite all her training and poise she looks as uncomfortable as he’s ever seen her.

His voice drops to a whisper. “Has the captain, by any chance, lost his mind? What good will it do to get us all caught up in this mess?”

“I’m sure he has his reasons. I’m just not entirely sure they’re sane reasons.”

He’s about to open his mouth, complain a little more, when he hears the Admiral’s voice from across the room. “Someone get Doc Cottle in here, right frakking now.”

The President is passed out, slumped forward over the table, glasses still in her hand. _How shi sung chung_. While the one remaining representative in the room—Simon assumes the Admiral’s son, as they share a last name—goes for the phone, he goes for the President.

Pulse, breathing—both good signs. He left his gorram medbag back on Serenity and mentally kicks himself for doing so. Then again, he never really expected this turn of events when Mal told him he was coming with him to the piece of gou shi warship.

He’s not entirely impressed with the speed at which the stretcher arrives to take the President away. He’s not entirely impressed with the medical facility on the ship. He supposes, though, that having been on the run for the past three years, things could be considerably worse.

Simon’s suppositions on that matter are confirmed the moment he lays eyes on the Chief Medical Officer. “Are you sure it’s a wise idea to smoke around a cancer patient?”

“She’s got breast cancer, not lung cancer,” he grunts and takes another pull on his cigarette, leaving Simon slackjawed and choking on a mouth full of second-hand smoke.

After thrice being shoved aside and growled at—“_You’re getting in my way, kid_”—he finally snaps.

“I _am_ a doctor, you know.”

“Of course you are. Why don’t you find some nice young thing to go play doctor with.”

Simon glares, but recedes, standing quietly to the side until the doctor determines she’s fine. “Probably just worn out from all the excitement.” He imagines he could’ve told them that himself if he’d just been allowed some decent equipment and a chance to look at the president.

The doctor—Cottle, they called him—arches an eyebrow and looks at Simon. “Suppose you’d like to weigh in with your fancy training and all?” The man seems to be smirking, but he holds out a medical chart.

Simon snatches the file out of his hands and mutters “_ke-wu de lao bao jun_”. He flips a page in the report, skimming it over. He turns another page, turns it back. His brow furrows and this was most definitely not what he was expecting.

“Well, _doctor_?” Cottle grunts.

He closes the file, eyes fixing hard on the other man. “I’ve never ever heard of any of these treatments in my life.”

The major snatches back the file, giving Simon a paper cut in the process. “Someone get this kid out of my sickbay.”

“_No! _” he protests. “Don’t you understand? I am an experienced medical professional and, well, a genius, and I don’t know about these treatments. Clearly, they are treatments used by _your_ people, _your_ doctors. They’re treatments that people in this end of the galaxy have never discovered. Obviously, our medical practices differ greatly and—”

“I don’t need to hear any of your excuses.” Cottle takes a pull on his cigarette.

“I have a point!” Simon splutters.

“Then just make your point, already.”

“The _point_ is that it stands to reason that _my_ people have treatments that _you_ have never heard of.” He adds a jab of the finger for emphasis. “Effective treatments that you have not introduced into the President’s regiment.”

Simon casts a look at the unconscious woman before turning back to Cottle. His voice drops as he continues. “Your report shows that her prognosis is grave. This… _doloxan_ or whatever it is you’re giving her clearly isn’t doing the job. If you would allow me some time, I could work up an entirely new course of treatment for her.”

Simon pinches the bridge of his nose. In all the excitement over his realization, he’s forgotten that he is stuck in the middle of nowhere with incredibly limited medical supplies and certainly none of which are suited to curing cancer. “There isn’t much that I will be able to do with the resources aboard _Serenity_ but there are many prestigious hospitals on the Core worlds. I’m sure we can find a way to set her up there, forge medical records so that it looks like she is transferring from one doctor to another.”

“Would it improve her chances of surviving?” Simon turns to see the Admiral standing behind him. Apparently he’d been listening to the entire exchange.

“In my professional opinion, yes. I think there is a possibility that it may very well save her life.” Nothing really changed in Adama’s solemn demeanor at the words, but Simon thinks maybe there’s something about him that looks more hopeful—or maybe just more desperate. Simon presses on. “I don’t want to give false hope. The cancer is very advanced, it will take a lot of work, but there are some Core hospitals that boast a very high survival rate for their cancer patients.”

The Admiral’s gaze travels from Simon back to Cottle. “Well, what do you think?” he asks.

Cottle takes the remaining stub of his cigarette and puts it out against a metal tray. He holds the President’s file back out to Simon. “He’s the doctor.”

=======================

Hours after the meeting, Lee lingers in the deserted wardroom. He’s got charts, maps, papers spread out over several tables and a pen clutched in his hand. He’s been going through the systems planet by planet trying to determine how many people could be safely hidden in each of the cities or towns without getting noticed.

He taps the end of his pen against the table, scrubbing a hand over his face and thinking back to the earlier events of the day. Though it seemed like many members of the Quorum were inclined to agree that settling here, especially with the threat of the non-allied cylons still looming, was the best course of action. Yet, no course of action could really be agreed upon. A second meeting the next morning would determine the plan for settlement, which would be put forth for the citizens of the Colonies to vote upon.

Of course, that meeting is in another eight hours and Lee doesn’t have anything remotely resembling a course of action to show for the hours he’s been sitting here. His mind just keeps wandering to everything that’s gotten them into this position. The new ship, _Serenity_. The name sounds like such a joke. Serenity—peace, tranquility, calm… the exact frakking opposite of everything that fleet life has turned in to—showing up out of nowhere. And the captain, Mal, something about him just rubs Lee the wrong way, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.

_Frak_. He needs to focus. He turns his attention back to the pad of paper he’s been scribbling on and reaches for the chart of another solar system sitting on the next table over. He needs to just buckle down and get this done now. He writes down on his pad _Georgia Star System_. Okay. He can do this. He clicks his pen closed and open and is about to set back to work when he hears the hatch squealing open.

“Hey.” Kara’s voice is not a distraction he needs right now, but, gods, he is glad to see her. Lee is unable to hide a smile as he looks up at her.

“What are you doing here?”

She crosses the room in a couple of strides, standing across from him, leaning her hands on the table. “Heard you were holed up in here. I spent a lot of time staring at star charts for a while, figured you could use my expertise.” She flashes him a quick grin before her gaze drops down to the table. Her eyes wander over the mess of charts and maps.

“Enlighten me,” he says, shaking his head.

She drags one towards herself, her lips tightening in a straight line. When she speaks again, there’s a strange tone to her voice—almost bitter. “So. This is our new home.”

“Yes. This is the ‘Union of Allied Planets.’” He pushes himself out of his seat and grabs the bigger chart. It doesn’t have all the details he needs to work out a plan, but it gives a good overview of the star systems. “According to Mal, this is the Core.” He points to a system in the center labeled _White Sun_. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to send anyone here. Most of the Alliance activity goes on there, and it’d be the quickest way to get caught. Apparently, some planets you need a certain level of clearance just to land.” He shakes his head. “And here.” He points to another labeled _Blue Sun_. “Small system. It looks like the least habitable of all the systems, it also has the smallest population.”

“More likely to get noticed,” Kara finishes his train of thought. He tilts his head to look at her but her focus remains fixed on the chart. “So that just leaves these three systems here. Red Sun, Kalidasa, and Georgia.” She points to each in turn.

“Apparently, each one has populations in the billions and at least fifteen habitable worlds. Easiest way to get lost.”

He watches as she traces her finger along the orbits marked around the star Kalidasa, and he goes back to staring at the Red Sun map. There are a few moments of silence before Kara mutters something to herself.

“Huh?” Lee glances up; her expression is unreadable.

“Nothing,” she says. He looks over to where her finger still rests on the map—it was right next to a planet labeled _Delphi_. He’s seen a few planets on the map that shared names with the Lords of Kobol and cities from the colonies, but he hasn’t noticed that one yet. There it was—a planet named as the very same city where he first met her. Next to the label there is a little symbol that denotes that the planet is uninhabitable.

Kara slides her hand away, gripping the table so hard her knuckles go white. “We divide the fleet into three groups. Send one-third to each system with enough information to split themselves up, get themselves onto the planets in small enough groups not to be noticed.” She nods her head. “Split the Quorum up into committees—four representatives to a group, have them come up with each plan on their own. They need to get their lazy asses in gear.”

“I really need to get you to do my work more often,” he says. She’s always been good at planning, he’s known it since the op at the tylium asteroid.

Lee stands up a bit straighter, folding his arms over his chest. “So tell me, since you seem to have this all worked out already, what do we do about the people aboard _Galactica_?”

“Same. Split everyone up into three groups, keep families, maybe even friends, together if we can. Keep enough of a crew around to find a place to park _Galactica_ permanently, have the rest take off in raptors or shuttles or something like that.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you should be a bureaucrat?” He quirks an eyebrow at her.

“You’re the first. And you’re gonna be the last,” she says, finally looking up at him. Her eyes are narrowed into a glare but there’s a tiny quirk at the corner of her lips.

He bites back a smile as he watches her straighten, her hands planted on her hips. “Well, you’d have to do something about your public speaking skills. Telling people to ‘get their lazy asses in gear’ doesn’t generally get you very far in politics.”

“Is a little groveling so much to ask? I just did all your work for you.” She rolls her eyes, obviously fighting back a grin as well. “See if I come help you out again.”

“Thanks for the great _ideas_, Starbuck. I still need to turn them into a presentable report in the next,” he checks his watch, “eight hours.”

“Well then, don’t let me keep you,” she says, turning for the door.

Suddenly, his heart drops into his stomach. On some impulse, he reaches across the table and catches her wrist before she can get away. “Kara…” He’s not sure where he’s going with that but she turns back to him. Her grin has faded somewhat, but there’s an almost expectant look in her eyes.

“What?” she asks after he’s paused a moment too long.

He gropes for the first words he can find. “Thank you. For your help. With the work. It’s a good plan.”

“Any time.” She frowns a bit as she looks at him, really looks at him. “Frak, Lee, when was the last time you slept?”

He hasn’t gotten a wink in days now, just gone from crisis with the cylons right into planning the end of the three-year journey that’s brought him here. “I’m fine. Maybe I can actually get some rest after I get this presentation together.” He just holds onto her hand tighter. “Why don’t you pull up a chair. It might go faster with two people working on it.”

She squeezes his hand back. “Well OK, but only because you look really pathetic right now.”

“Your charity is touching. Really.”

She pulls up a chair, sits across from him at the table as they work from her general plan to get to the specifics. They talk about the pros and cons of forming small communities of their own in isolated areas, moving into small towns, and getting lost in the big cities. They talk about the lack of identification and living expenses, and just how the hell people are going to get on their feet.

They don’t talk about _them_. They don’t talk about where they’re going to end up or what they are going to do. It feels too abstract right now, like they’re spinning some fairy tale, for any of it to be real. He cannot fathom that they might be separated—that he really might lose her in this vast universe and never find her again.

 

\--To Be Continued--


	3. Chapter 3

It takes nearly a week for her to get back on her feet—well enough to travel, that is—but when she’s recovered from her fainting spell, Roslin finds herself aboard _Serenity_. Apparently, Cottle had made the decision to turn her treatment over—in part—to the medic residing on the new ship. In the two hours since she’s arrived, she’s been interviewed about her condition incessantly and pin-pricked by more needles than she cares to count. It’s more tension than she wants to deal with—today of all days, when ballots are being cast to determine whether to end their journey here or keep going.

Fifteen minutes after Doctor Tam excuses himself to run more analyses, there’s a light knocking at the door to the infirmary. Laura looks up to see a man with dark skin and grey hair standing at the entryway with a tray in his hands. “Pardon the intrusion, but I thought you might like something to eat.”

For the first time all morning, she feels like a guest rather than a science experiment. “Thank you. That’s very thoughtful of you, Mr.—”

“Just Book. I go by Book,” he says, walking into the room. “And you are Laura Roslin? I’ve heard about you from the captain.” He sets the tray on her lap with a warm smile. The matter on the plate is rather grey in color, obviously heavily processed, and rather formless. “I’m sorry that we don’t have something better to offer. Lately we’ve been eating a lot of protein. It’s inexpensive and easy to come by.”

What would have looked like an unappetizing meal several years ago, suddenly has her mouth watering. “No, this is wonderful.” Laura starts to feel a genuine smile form on her lips. This is the first _good_ thing that has happened to her since their initial encounter with _Serenity_. “We’ve been eating nothing but algae for almost a year.”

“Algae?” He raises a curious eyebrow.

“We didn’t have any way to grow more food, so we’ve had to make do with what we could find.”

“I’ve always made it a practice never to turn away food when so many go without, however, I imagine a diet of nothing but algae is something one would…” He pauses, sounding like he’s reaching for delicacy. “…tire of quite easily.”

Laura finds that she’s enjoying Book’s company, he is a comforting presence, and she finds relief in his genuine interest. Unlike Captain Reynolds, who had seemed wary and guarded throughout the bare bones summary of their story, Book seems to be searching for something more. She finds herself telling him about the algae planet, the loss of ships in the journey through the star cluster, searching for the Eye of Jupiter, a race against a star about to go nova.

He listens with rapt attention as she tells him about Bill’s resolve to nuke the planet to keep their enemies from getting the Eye; even if it meant the loss of his only living son. “It sounds as though you and the Admiral have had to make some very hard decisions these past few years. Tell me,” he adds softly. “What exactly was so important about this Eye of Jupiter?”

Laura falters for a moment, the question momentarily catching her off guard. She quickly collects herself and continues. “The Eye of Jupiter is spoken of in the Sacred Scrolls. It was supposed to be a signpost, to point the way to Earth.” She fights to keep the implications of it all in the back of her mind.

“Well, the sign post was correct in pointing you in the right direction.” He seems to have picked up on her uneasiness. “It just seems to have been a little too late.”

He is right, of course. While they may not have found Earth, they do seem to have found the Thirteenth Tribe, the rest of their fellow humans, though it’s under less than ideal conditions.

“Out of curiosity, why Earth? The captain told me that your home worlds were destroyed and finding Earth became your goal. So why Earth in particular? Couldn’t you have stopped at another habitable planet?”

She falters again, wondering if this tribe’s ignorance of the Eye of Jupiter extends to all of the Colonial Faith. Perhaps it was lost with Earth. She quickly fills Book in on the basic tenets, Kobol, the thirteen tribes and the exodus, and the Arrow of Apollo and Tomb of Athena.

“Apollo, Athena,” he echoes softly. In his voice is the first sign of recognition that he’s shown to anything she’s said. “You worship the Greek Gods?”

“Greek?”

“Thousands of years ago, on Earth That Was, there was a country, Greece, whose religion spoke of the gods you speak of. Their religion hasn’t been actively practiced for millennia, though it isn’t entirely forgotten. Several planets bear the names of their gods… Persephone and Aphrodite for example.”

Not only have they found a dead world, but their religion is dead as well. They talk a bit longer about the commonly practiced faiths in this world. Book tells her he is a priest of a religion called Christianity—that has arisen from a set of beliefs that all center around the idea of a single, all-knowing god.

She holds her hand to her mouth trying to block the sound of the half-sobbing laugh that breaks from her chest. Book gives her a quizzical look, “Have I said something upsetting?”

She just shakes her head, turning her attention to her food, lifting a forkful of the grey substance. “So, you’re a priest,” she says, forcing her way through the discomfort, a sense of curiosity building. For lack of a better question, she asks, “What’s that like?”

“Well,” he laughs, “I don’t think you want me to bore you with the details of my spiritual journey. I can tell you however, that it isn’t all tediously boring study.” Another laugh. “There was this one time at the monastery—”

Book keeps her company with stories—about the monastery, about _Serenity_—while she eats her food. He stays with her until Simon returns with some test results and asks to be alone with his patient.

“Laura,” he says, as he stands to leave. “For what it’s worth, it doesn’t matter to me what a person believes, just that she does believe.”

“I’m sure you can imagine that the past few days have greatly shaken my beliefs.” She keeps her tone firm and even. With no Earth, there is no promised land to lead her people to, no land she would not live to see. She sees a certain irony in it all, that the loss of Earth has perhaps led to another chance for her to live—that is of course, should the citizens vote to stay.

He simply smiles as he takes her tray. “And I’m sure you can imagine that meeting an entire society that follows an old Earth-That-Was religion makes one question one’s beliefs as well.”

=========================

_Early projections look like we may finally be coming to the end of our journey, but exit polls proved to be unreliable back during the—  
_  
“Would someone turn that frakking thing down?” Kara shouts, not looking up from her cards. If the day they found The Bug was tense, today is completely and utterly nerve-wracking. She’s trying to think about the cards in front of her and nothing else. No point in obsessing over the vote, it’s not like there’s anything they can do about it now.

Someone turns the wireless down, but still loud enough so that those crowded around it can still hear the news. The self-righteous Colonial Gang just becomes another part of the din and Kara pulls her attention back to her own table in time to catch Costanza’s ramble. “—so then the other dinosaur goes ‘Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!’ and—”

“You gonna chat or you gonna play, Hot Dog?” she snaps. It’s not the first story she’s heard about Serenity’s pilot, Wash. Apparently, in the week since CAP’s been restructured to include the new ship, Wash has made buddies with the pilots, keeping them chattering and joking over the comms rather than actually doing their jobs. Sure, the fleet has been holding their position; sure, they have a truce with some of the cylons; but it still doesn’t mean that they’re home free. Not yet.

Hot Dog quickly cuts off his story, his eyes turned towards Kara. He doesn’t move or say anything. Her gaze flicks towards Helo and Racetrack who are both silently staring at her over their cards. “What?!”

“Bet’s to you, ‘Buck,” Helo says.

“Right.” She blinks hard; _frak_, she is really out of it. She looks at her cards, finally realizing what a shitty hand she has this round. “I raise,” she says, grabbing another twenty cubits from her stash and dropping them into the middle of the table.

Kara manages to win the hand on her bluff, and she grins at Racetrack’s utter indignation at the fact. She’s starting the deal for the next round when a hush settles over the rec room. All the voices drop to whispers and all attention turns toward the doorway, through which the captain and the first mate of The Bug have just entered.

She puts the cards down and folds her arms over her chest, sizing the two of them up. They don’t look like much, wearing some really frakking weird clothing, but that’s about the most she can say.

The two stand, watching the rest of the group for a moment, before the man steps over to the card table. “What’s the game?” he asks, settling into an empty chair between Racetrack and Helo.

“Triad,” Racetrack replies.

“Never heard of it.” He sits forward, looking like he wants to be dealt in.

Racetrack and Hot Dog exchange a small smirk, before Helo gives Kara a subtle nod. Seems like all of them are thinking the same thing—easy win. She turns to the captain. “If you got something to bet with, we’d be glad to teach you,” she says, shooting them a smile anyone else might recognize as dangerous.

“Why not? Figure I got some time on my hands.” He turns over his shoulder to look at his companion. “Zoë, wanna play a hand?”

“Not yet, sir. I’d like to learn from your mistakes first,” she replies, coolly.

Mal digs a bunch of strange coins out of his pocket and sets them on the table off. “Platinum,” he tells Kara, catching her raised eyebrow. “Don’t exactly know what it’s worth of your metal there,” he says, gesturing to the stack of cubits by her elbow. “But I figure it’ll do me ‘til I got something more to bet with. If that’s alright with you.”

Kara lays the cards face up on the table, goes through the deck, the suits, the hands, and when Mal tells her he’s got the gist of it, she deals him in. “Ante up.”

She picks her hand up without taking her eyes off of Mal. He’s not a bad-looking guy, she thinks, fleetingly, but he doesn’t look too bright, either. As the guy surveys his hand with something of an amused look. His first mate looks on over his shoulder and mutters something to him in a language that Kara doesn’t understand. _Great_, of course they speak some other language, just going to make it all that much harder to blend in when they move onto these stupid rocks—_if _they move onto these stupid rocks. She’s not sure at any given moment which side she wants the vote to come down on.

Kara can’t really say she’s had many good experiences on the last few planets they came across.

“So, _Captain_,” she says, narrowing her gaze at Mal, cutting off his first mate mid-sentence. “Sounds like your pilot has been keeping my pilots playing games when they’re supposed to be on duty. Yeah, Hot Dog, I’m looking at you.”

“Can’t very well blame me for the actions of my pilot—” he trails off, prompting her for her name.

“Kara Thrace. Captain.”

“Well, Captain Thrace, like I said, can’t blame me for what he does. But, if you have a qualm,” he pauses, starting to gesture over his shoulder, “you can take it up with—”

“If you say ‘his wife,’ it’ll be the last thing you say,” Zoë says, laying a hand on his shoulder in a way that promises imminent death.

“You know you could stand to put him on a tighter leash from time to time.” He jokes it off and turns back to Kara. “I was goin’ to say you can take it up with him. Sounds like you’re the one in charge ‘round these parts.”

“She’s the CAG,” Hot Dog says, raising his bet. Racetrack matches the raise.

Mal and Zoë share another brief exchange in that frakking language before Mal drops a few platinum into the center of the table. “You don’t say. We didn’t have much of an air force, did most of our fightin’ planetside.”

“You’re soldiers?” Helo asks, eyebrow raised. His gaze flicks back and forth between Zoë and Mal. “Both of you.”

“Were,” Zoë says.

“The Unification War, right?” Racetrack asks.

“Are we talking or are we playing?” Kara snaps, drawing the others’ attentions back to the game. It’s the first time all day that she’s had a decent hand and she’s ready to lay down her cards.

When it comes around to Mal’s turn to reveal, he lays them down and says, “Now, I ain’t exactly sure what this hand is called, but I reckon it ain’t half bad.”

“Frak me,” Kara hisses, leaning over the table to get a better look. “Four on a run? On your first hand?” Racetrack rolls her eyes and calls it as beginner’s luck, but Kara continues to regard Mal with a wary look as she settles back in her seat. “How did you do that, _Captain_?”

“Well, _Captain_, y’all don’t think you’re the only soldiers who ever passed the downtime playing cards, do you?” Mal scoops his winnings towards himself. “I figure cards are universal. Rules change, hands change, but it don’t matter what game you’re playin’ as long as you know how to play a table.”

Kara mutters a small noise of appreciation, thinking that maybe the cowboy isn’t as dumb as he looks. “Not bad.” She leaned forward, a smirk on her face and a challenge in her eyes. “Bet you can’t do it again.”

Zoë pulls a chair up to the table as Hot Dog deals the next round. The two of them stick around, playing cards and swapping war stories with them, for the better part of two hours. It turns out that Mal’s first hand was a bit of luck, because Kara’s now sitting with a significant pile of his platinum along with her cubits, but he doesn’t seem to lament his losses.

“So,” Kara says, dealing the next round, “What’ve you been doing since the war ended?”

“Got a ship, got a crew, kept flyin’.” Mal picks up his hand, arranging his cards. “Not exactly the most profitable life, but it’s a livin’.”

Might not be a profitable life, but Kara likes the sound of it—not being tied down to one of these planets, She’s always felt better in space than on the ground. Of course there is the little problem of _affording_ a ship like that. Their money is completely worthless right now and getting on her feet planetside is going to be hard enough as it is. _Frak_.

Before Kara has the chance to say anything else, Sharon walks in with Hera balanced on her hip. She kisses Karl quickly before sliding Hera into his lap, saying she’s rostered for CAP and rushing out.

Mal casts a curious look to the little girl. “Now, who do we have here?”

Kara rolls her eyes, when Karl puts on that_ proud dad_ look on his face that he gets whenever he has the chance to brag about his little girl—or even acknowledge the fact that he has procreated. “This is my daughter, Hera.”

“Hera,” he echoes before turning back to his hand. “Got a planet out here called Hera. That’s where Serenity Valley is, lost the last major battle of the Unification War in that valley.”

Helo turns to Kara, eyes wide, and not exactly sure what to do with this new piece of information. She shoots him back a shrug and a look that says _hell if I know_.

Mal’s voice has a forced cheerfulness when he backpedals. “Beautiful name for a little girl, though.”

“Um… thank you,” Helo says, brow furrowed.

Kara doesn’t bother to suppress a laugh this time. “Alright, Zoë. Bet’s to you.”

“_Hey everyone, keep it down_!” Skulls shouts. The rec room falls completely silent as he turns up the wireless once again.

_Officially, we’re still waiting on ballots from the Zephyr and the Gideon but even combined, these votes won’t be enough to tip the scales. The citizens of the Colonies have made their choice clear…_

======================

Quiet is not a word Lee typically would use to describe _Galactica_; even in the most desperate of times, there was always life here—you couldn’t turn a corner without running into officers going over paperwork, pilots jogging to keep up their stamina, or just your everyday, ordinary, run of the mill crisis. Now the hallways are filled with the echoes of his own footfalls.

It’s been a month since the fleet voted to settle in these solar systems. One month since the fleet slowly split itself in three—ships, citizens, representatives, soldiers—and drifted off, scattered among the stars. All that remained of the fleet now is _Galactica_, with only as many crew members as needed to make her sail on to her final destination—Seventh Circle. It’s a desolate moon, completely uninhabitable, circling a gas giant out in the Blue Sun system. According to Captain Reynolds, it’d be a good place to hide the ship; no one goes out there, so no one will find her.

Lee takes the corridors he knows so well, taken so many times over the past three years, up to CIC. Quiet there, too. Looking around he can see only a few officers; Gaeta, Dee, and Hoshi among them. The trio sitting together up in the communications center seems to be intently focused on something, but Lee cannot tell what from his position. Whatever it is, it’s incredibly last moment. There’s already a small pile of duffle bags by the door—Dee’s on the top—all packed and ready to go.

He turns his attention to his father, standing by command and control, staring up at the blank dradis readouts. His eyes look distant as they focus on the screens and, for a moment, Lee isn’t sure that his father has noticed him walking up alongside him.

It’s almost funny. He only came to this ship, under orders, to see it decommissioned. Three and a half years later and only now is that finally becoming a reality.

Three and a half years have taken a toll. His father looks older, aged by far more than the passage of time—but there’s something heavy and sad about him, something that very may well have been there the first day Lee came to _Galactica_. He supposes he wouldn’t have noticed it back then, not the way things were. It honestly feels like a lifetime ago.

“Dad,” he starts, and Adama shows no indication that he’s heard him. “Captain Reynolds says he’s about ready to start taking on passengers.” Still no response. “It… it’s time.”

It’s always been this way. His father loves this ship, his work, always has. Three and a half years ago it would’ve struck in him a bitterness, an angry pit that lived in him since his youth, left by his father’s absence. Now it strikes in him a pity, for an old man who seems to be facing a life with nothing to command, nothing to fight. Lee opens his mouth to start again, but is cut off.

“We all were sea-swallowed.” Lee raises a confused eyebrow. This was not the response he was expecting. Oblivious, his father continues. “Though some cast again, and by that destiny to perform an act whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come in yours and my discharge.”

He shakes his head, not understanding. “What—”

“Poetry. A play actually, from Earth That Was. The planet Dr. Tam recommended for Laura’s treatment was named for a character in it.” His hand taps a book resting on the table in front of him that Lee had not yet noticed. “I borrowed this from Captain Reynolds.”

“The man reads?” Lee scoffs. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“The passage talks about a shipwreck, a group of survivors, making the best of what they have using the lessons of the past to guide them.” He picks up the book, tucking it under his arm. “I thought it seemed… appropriate.”

Lee shoves his hands into his pocket. “So, how does the play end?”

“Not sure,” Adama says, turning to face him fully now. There is a deep loss reflected in his eyes, and Lee thinks that he truly does look shipwrecked. “I haven’t finished it yet. I suppose I’d imagined spending my retirement reading.”

“A planet like Ariel should have a libraries. Should keep you busy for a while.” He grins as his dad lets out a low chuckle.

The rumble of laughter fades away quickly as his father takes a look around the nearly empty CIC, and this time Lee’s gaze follows. Lee watches Dee, Gaeta, and Hoshi as they finish up whatever they’ve been working on and walk down to grab their bags by the door. Gaeta protests some as Hoshi grabs two bags, but he ignores him as the three disappear out into the corridor.

Now it’s just the two of them.

Lee’s left this place before, months ago when he left the military, but back then he knew that it would go on without him there. He can’t imagine how much worse it is for his dad—when the ship was supposed to be decommissioned she would have been a museum, she would have still gone on, but now when they leave, they’ll be leaving behind a shell.

Before Lee knows what he’s doing, he turns towards his father, his hands closing over his shoulders, the way he’s done so many times before. A simple gesture, but one he was sure the Old Man would understand. “She’s a good ship, Dad,” he says. “Got us through more than her fair share of fights, got us here. She served us well.”

“That she did.” His father’s voice broke a bit as he speaks, his eyes damp. He repeats solemnly, “That she did.”

Lee isn’t sure what to say now, isn’t sure that there really is anything left to say. So instead he asks, “Um, do you have everything packed?”

“Not quite,” he admitted, almost sounding guilty, like he’d been putting off an important task simply because he didn’t want to.

“Let’s go get the rest of it, then.” Lee pulls one hand away, but gives his father a gentle squeeze on the shoulder with the other before turning to leave.

They walk in silence back to the Admiral’s quarters, and Lee helps him get the last of his things packed up, and down to the hangar bay, where Serenity’s shuttles are transporting passengers to the Bug. Lee supposes it’s gracious of Mal to offer to take the last people from Galactica aboard and get them where they needed to go. The Captain had even arranged for the cargo bay to be used as a sleeping area. He’s not sure, though, why the man who seemed so cagy is now so willing to offer a helping hand.

But right now Lee isn’t going to question it. Right now he takes his own duffle and climbs aboard the shuttle. Stepping into the shuttle feels like stepping into a new world—it’s draped in silks and smells strongly of incense. Not an entirely inappropriate feeling, he thinks. Inara welcomes him, decorous as always, and invites him to make himself comfortable, but Lee finds that he is anything but. His father settles himself down on the long red couch, unbuttoning the jacket of his uniform as he looks around the shuttle’s interior.

When Inara leaves the main area, Lee follows her onto the bridge. He stares out the windscreen, taking one last look around the interior of the landing bay as the shuttle’s engines rumble to life and they leave _Galactica_ for the last time.

  
\--To Be Continued--


	4. Chapter 4

It’s been almost four years since Lee’s cooked anything. Everyone’s been trading off jobs on the weeks they’ve been aboard _Serenity_, and when it’s Lee’s turn to fix dinner, he realizes he’s actually pretty excited about it. Besides, a few more days and he’s going to be living on his own again, so he figures it’s a good skill to brush up on. Luckily, they’re docked at Boros which has a thriving marketplace near the space port, and Lee’s able to go out and barter for the supplies to make a decent stew.

When he gets back to the ship, he sees Mal, Zoë, and Jayne loading some large crates into the cargo bay. Until recently, the bay had resembled Camp Oil Slick with cots and bedrolls and people all crushed together. But now there are only a few passengers left and it looks like Reynolds is getting back to his normal business—whatever that is.

“Morning, Captain,” Lee says with a short nod, as he makes his way up the loading ramp.

“Afternoon local time, actually” he replies with the same cheerful but dodgy voice he always seems to use with Lee. After a few weeks aboard, Lee’s discovered that Mal has little respect for the government and it’s workers. It’s also become very clear what Reynolds sees in Lee.

“Well, I hope you’re not expecting dinner any time soon,” Lee deadpans. He adjusts the satchel of groceries on his shoulder, watching Jayne maneuver their land vehicle to move another crate into the hold. “What’s in the boxes?” he asks, trying to keep his voice casual.

“Just some cargo needs movin’ to Beaumonde.” His tone of voice is sharp and final. Mal gestures towards Lee’s satchel. “Better get those inside ‘fore they go to bad.”

Lee reminds himself that he only has to put up with Reynolds for a few more hours as he pushes past him and makes his way through the cargo bay. Close to the door, he sees Gaeta sitting on a crate, in conversation with Hoshi, both of them seem to be waiting for something. Lee gives them a brief nod and continues towards the stairs.

“Just let them know I sent you, and they shouldn't give you any difficulties,” Inara’s voice comes from above.

Lee glances up to the catwalks to see the companion speaking with Dee. Dee flashes Inara a smile full of gratitude. “I can’t thank you enough for all your help.”  She adjusts the bag on her shoulder, and starts down the stairs, pausing at the landing where Lee stands.

He looks at her for a moment, taking in the civvies and the packed bag, and he looks back down at the other two ex-bridge officers in the cargo bay. He turns back to her. “This is your stop?”

“Yeah, this is it,” she says with a weak smile. 

Lee shifts his weight a little as he realizes this is the last time he’s going to see Dee. There are a lot of things he should probably say to her right now—apologies mostly. He didn’t regret the end of their marriage, not at all, but the marriage itself, in retrospect, had been completely unfair to her. He should apologize, instead he asks, “Do you have any plans?”

“There’s a um… a Buddhist temple outside of Boros City that houses guests.”

“Buddhist?”

“Yeah. I don’t really know much about it, Inara was explaining it to me, she was saying something about four truths—something about desire and suffering and a cycle…” Dee shakes her head. “Anyway, she’s arranged for Felix and Louis and me to stay there while we figure things out. It’s supposed to be a very peaceful place. What about you? Last I heard you were going to try to fix the Alliance government from the inside. Still planning on playing the hero?”

“That’s the idea,” he says, with a wry smile. “I’m going with my father and Pr…Laura to the core planets. Once we’re out of this system, Inara’s going to be shuttling us there. Apparently they’re going to need her clearance just to land on the Ariel. Simon has some forged documents to make settling in easier for them. And then I’m going to be settling on Osiris.”

 “Good luck, then. It sounds like you’re going to need it.” She’s about to turn away when she seems to remember something. “Oh, hold on.” She sets her bag down and digs out from it a small folded piece of paper.

“What’s that?”

“Just something in case of an emergency. Access to a hidden communications network Felix, Louis, and I set up in the Cortex. A way to leave contact information, send untraceable messages… That way if there’s any kind of problem, people in the fleet can get back in touch with each other,” she says, handing it over to him. He slides it into his pocket as she hauls her bag back onto her shoulder. “I really have to go; the guys are waiting for me.”

Lee steps forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her into a hug. “Take care of yourself, Ana,” he says.

She hugs him back. “You too, Lee.”

Lee watches her continue on down the stairs, through the bay and over to her friends. The three of them head out into the sunny space port, and he continues on up the stairs and out into the living area. Seated around the kitchen table, Kara and Helo are playing cards with Simon and Book. Simon’s younger sister is hovering around Kara’s seat, flitting around, almost birdlike in her movements.

“Good game?” Lee asks as he walks past, dropping the satchel onto the counter.

Kara leans back in her seat. “Sweet Lords of Kobol, please tell me you’re not actually cooking.”  She wrinkles her nose as she turns to Simon. “Hope you’re ready for a long night, doc.”

“And_ you_ are the gourmet among us, of course, Kara.” He unpacks the fresh vegetables and meat from the satchel, putting them into storage for later. “There isn’t enough antacid left in the universe to save us all from one of your dinners.” It’s true. Starbuck has many talents, but none of them are culinary. Lee had spent half the night in the head the last time she had the dinner shift.

She turns back to her hand, shaking her head, a small smirk settling across her lips. “Poor, Lee. Your delicate stomach just can’t handle what I can cook up.” 

Lee can’t help but smile. For the first time in months—gods, since she’s come back—she seems at ease. After a few weeks on _Serenity_, she’s starting to resemble the Kara he used to know, who was loud and brash and a pain in his ass,… and sharp and bright with a grin that made him go weak in the knees. “I think I can handle whatever you—”

A loud piercing wail cuts him off. River’s hands fly to her head, tearing at her hair. “It’s not working. All the rules are broken. Electrons don’t exist but they say they do. Two is one and one is two. In two places at once or nowhere at all. _A particle is not a wave_!”

She lashes out, knocking into Kara’s chair, and sending her toppling to the floor. Book jumps out of his seat and Simon is on his feet in seconds, trying to restrain River, catching her arms to keep her from hitting anything. “It shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t be here!” She twists and writhes in her brother’s arms.

Lee’s at Kara’s side in seconds. Helo is already beside her, supporting her shoulders as she sits up. “Are you alright?” Lee asks.

“Fine,” she grits, pressing her hand to her head. When she pulls it away, there’s a small smear of red across her palm. “Just hit the corner of the table on the way down.”

“Can I take a look?” Helo says, brushing Kara’s hair back from her face.

“_It is the harbinger of death_!”

Kara goes rigid for a brief moment, before shoving Helo’s hand back. “It’s fine, alright. Just… leave it alone.” She shrugs off both of them, grabbing the edge of the table and hauling herself to her feet. She stares over at River whose shouts have now turned into little shuddering sobs. Shepherd Book takes her by the shoulders, says in a soft voice that he’ll take River down to the infirmary.

“I’m sorry,” Simon says as he turns back to them. “My sister is troubled. When she gets like that, I don’t think she even knows what she is saying.” 

Kara’s head snaps up, her eyes narrow and dark as the doctor walks up to her.  “Really?” she asks, her voice is even but curious. “She do that a lot?” That distant, almost lost look she carried with her in the past few months is back. Lee glances over at Helo, but can’t catch his eye—he’s just staring at Kara, eyebrows knit in concern.

“Sometimes. I haven’t quite figured out what sets her off.” Simon walks over to Kara, and notices the bit of blood staining her hair. He frowns. “You’re injured.”

“It’s nothing,” she says, folding her arms across her chest.

“She hit her head during all the excitement,” Lee says. Kara turns her head, leveling a glare—a _stay out of my frakking business_ glare—at him before turning away again. She never did know when to accept a little help.

“Why don’t you come down to the infirmary with me and we’ll get that cleaned up.” Kara doesn’t flinch away when the doctor steps forward trying to get a better look. In fact, she actually looks like she’s giving it a moment of consideration, and then she starts heading for the stairs.

Helo bends, picking up the fallen chair and setting it upright again.

“You noticed it too,” Lee says once the two of them are alone.

“The one-eighty she just pulled? Kind of hard to miss.” Karl frowns as he takes a seat.

Lee sits across from him. “Do you have any idea what caused it? I mean… has she said… anything?”

Helo shakes his head. Lee lets out a sigh; he really should know better by now. Silence threatens to reign until Wash’s voice crackles over the intercom that they’re going to be taking off in about ten minutes.

Changing the subject, Helo looks back over to him. “Need any help making dinner?”

“Not yet,” Lee says, pushing back from the table. “I really should go pack.”

“Right. I’m going to go check on Hera, make sure she’s not driving Sharon and Zoë up one bulkhead and down the other.” Helo lets out a laugh and heads for the bridge while Lee turns and heads back out to the catwalk.

He makes his way down the stairs, passing by the infirmary. Lee casts a glance at the window as he walks by and catches a glimpse of the wary looks Kara’s throwing River’s way. Making his way back out to the cargo bay and kneels down by his duffle bag. He starts to gather up the few belongings that are scattered around his sleeping area and starts packing them into the bag. That’s when it hits him, really hits him. He’s not going to be spending another night aboard _Serenity_. After this evening, he’s going to be gone with his father and Roslin—off to an unfamiliar world. And Kara… Kara’s going to be somewhere else.

She’s going to be somewhere in another star system, and he doesn’t have any idea what she thinks, what she wants, what she’s going to do. It’s not like she can’t take care of herself—Lee has more than enough faith in her ability to do that—but she’ll be gone. They've never said goodbyes in the past, and, well, as it turned out, it’s never really been goodbye for good. But this is different, there are so many worlds to get lost in out here, and the thought of losing her forever is starting to make him sick. 

=======================

“Guess my cooking didn’t kill anyone after all.”

Kara looks up from the dishes to see Lee smirking at her from the doorway and she grins a little bit despite herself. “Night’s still young. Doc’s got plenty of meds stored up and ready.”

She drops the plate she’s washing into the sink and takes a step back, watching as Lee walks closer to her. “Is your head okay?”

She can already feel the air between them shift and she’s not sure where this is going. “A bit banged up, but still works the same as always.” He’s barely a foot away from her now and she can feel her heart beating in her chest and she feels the strong urge to change the subject as quickly as possible. “So, you hear that Tyrol’s not getting off at Beaumonde after all?”

“Yeah,” Lee says. The tone of his voice is low and serious and carrying an undercurrent she can’t place. “He’s staying here with Kaylee.” Lee tosses an appraising look around the kitchen. “Not a bad place to start over.” His eyes fix back on her again, and suddenly she gets it. She knows what’s coming next. Her mouth is opening to cut him off before he can start again, but he’s a second quicker than she is. “I’m leaving, Kara.”

“I know.” She swallows.

“I’m really leaving. In a few hours, I’m getting on a shuttle and going to the Core and… I’m gone.”

She knows that already. Gods, she’s spent the last couple of hours trying so damn hard to push that thought out of her mind. Kara folds her arms over her chest, he’s clearly not about to drop the subject now. “Where are we going with this?”

Lee steps closer again, crowding her back against the table. His hands reach for her arms. “Come with me.”

Kara blinks hard, her lips pursed tightly shut because she’s sure the next word out of her mouth is going to be yes. She wants to. Gods she wants to. But she doesn’t answer him, just looks up at him with a questioning look.

His eyes light up. “This is our chance, Kara. I’ve let you go too many times and I’m not going to do it again.” Her hands fall to her sides and his hand comes up to cup her face. His thumb slides over her cheekbone and her eyes flutter shut. “We can have a fresh start here.”

It’s a pretty lie. No doubt Lee thinks it’s the truth, but Kara knows differently. There’s no clean slate, her past isn’t going to just magically vanish because they’ve come to a new place. That crazy girl, River, she pegged her right away. Her brother might think she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, that it’s just a fit or whatever, but she clearly knows something. She used those same words the hybrid did.

Her eyes snap open, gaze hard as she locks on Lee. “Like we could on New Caprica?”

Lee’s jaw clenches, his eyes narrowing. “Maybe we could’ve, Kara. Maybe we actually could’ve made things work if _you_ hadn’t…” He shuts his eyes, composing himself, and takes a deep breath. “It’s different this time. No one is after us. If we go to Osiris together—”

“No one is after us?” Kara cuts him off with a bitter laugh. “We’re going into hiding, Lee. The entire frakking government is gonna be after us if they figure out who we are. I wouldn’t last a day on Osiris, Lee. What kind of planet demands security clearance just to let you land on it? The Alliance watching you every time you set foot on a shuttle? Cameras on the street corners? Taps on every phone? No, thanks.”

She knows it’s not enough to shut him down, but she doesn’t anticipate his next tactic. “Then I’ll go to Beaumonde with you.”

Kara grabs his shoulders and gives him a hard shove back, forcing space between the two of them. She draws in a deep breath. “For the gods’ sakes, Lee, are you even listening to yourself?” Her voice is rising now, close to yelling, speaking through gritted teeth. _Good Lords_, doesn’t he realize how much of a frakking idiot he’s being. “You can’t go to Beaumonde. What the frak happened to your big plans? Work yourself into the government; get some help for the Colonials who’re out there? You’re gonna give all that up so you can bum around some dingy city? Work in a factory? Fade into the crowd?”

“Is that what you’re going to do, Kara?” He raises an eyebrow, folding his arms across his chest. “Starbuck’s just going to… fade into the crowd?”

“This has nothing to do with me.” She matches his posture. “Gods, you’re so obsessed with doing the _right _thing; why the hell are you changing your tune now?”

“Maybe this is the right thing, Kara.” Lee’s practically growling now, standing toe to toe with her. “Maybe this is the right thing for_ us._”

Finally, she knows how she is going to end this. “There is no us. I said it before… all we’ll ever be is CAG and problem pilot and we’re not even those people anymore, Lee. So that’s it… there’s nothing.” She turns her back on him, walking back over to the sink and plunging her hands into the soapy dishwater so he won’t see them shaking.

Lee doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. She can still feel him standing in the same spot, can feel his eyes boring into her back. Kara refuses to turn back, refuses to look at him. This has to end, has to be over. He can’t keep waiting for her, expecting some frakking happy ending. It’s never going to happen, not for them. Not for her.

But when she finally hears footsteps, they aren’t moving away, they’re moving towards her. His hand catches her by the shoulder and spins her around. She loses the grip on the plate she’s holding and it clatters and breaks at her feet, as Lee’s hands capture her face and his mouth seals hard over hers. Kara can feel heat rushing in her veins, so she squeezes her eyes shut, clenching her fists at her sides. She can’t touch him, can’t hold him now—no matter how insistent his lips are, no matter how much she wants it.

Lee pulls back, searching her eyes for a moment before his mouth tightens into a grim line. “So that’s it…” he says, his voice is icy as he copies her words. “This is goodbye?”

“Yeah,” she says, fighting to keep her voice even and steady. “This is goodbye.” She watches, unmoving as he turns on his heel and storms out of the dining room. It isn’t till she’s sure he’s gone that Kara sags and turns back to the sink, her hands clenching the rim of the counter as she slumps forward. She shuts her eyes tight, trying to keep her breathing reigned in as she reminds herself that it’ll be better this way.

Reminds herself that he doesn’t need her frakking up his fresh start.

=======================  
   
“Ball!” Hera exclaims, pointing excitedly at the game going on in the cargo hold below. Karl hasn’t quite figured out what exactly the point of the game is beyond throwing a ball through a metal hoop suspended from the cargo bay ceiling, but the_ Serenity_ crew is really into it, and has even managed to rope Sam into their game.

“Yes, ball. Very good,” he says, grabbing his daughter by the waist and stopping her third attempt at climbing over the railing of the catwalk. He’s beginning to wonder if she’s going to end up as an escape artist of some kind. In their days aboard the ship, Hera’s mastered the art of hide-and-seek and has found more nooks and crannies than he and Sharon have combined. More often than not, Zoë’s the one to bring the girl back to them.

Captain Reynold’s stoic first mate seems to have taken a liking to Hera, and Karl’s caught some pointed words she’s said to her husband about how well Karl and Sharon are raising their child despite the time _not being ideal_. Karl’s also caught the way Wash has paled every time he’s seen his wife with Hera, and he’s had to hold back quite a few laughs.

Hera manages to wriggle out of his arms again, very purposeful this time, and rushes along the walkway over to where Kara has just shown up.  His friend’s eyes are dark and bloodshot, and she doesn’t seem all too happy about the way Hera has decided to attach herself to Kara’s leg.

“Morning, sunshine,” he says, prying Hera away. “Rough night?”

“Jayne introduced me to Blue Sun beer,” she mutters, pulling her hair back away from her face and into a messy ponytail.

“Is it any good?”

“Tastes like shit. But it gets you real drunk, real fast.” Her lips are forced into a smirk, and Karl frowns.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. Never better.”

Karl sets Hera down. “Mommy’s talking with Zoë in the dining room. Why don’t you go find her?” he asks softly, pointing towards where he could see the two of them. Hera nods vigorously and toddles off. He watches her until Sharon’s scooped their daughter up into her arms.

“What’s going on, Kara?” he asks, turning back to her.

Kara leans her elbows on the railing and shakes her head. “Nothing. Just wanted a drink. That’s all.”

He sighs as he leans back against the rail. She looks away when he tries to catch her gaze. “You’ve been acting all edgy since River freaked out yesterday.” He nudges her gently with his elbow. “Come on. You know you can tell me anything.”

Kara’s shoulders relaxed a bit as she let out a sigh. “She just… said some things that kind of threw me.”

“Some things?” he echoes, raising an eyebrow. “Kara, you heard Simon—she doesn’t know what she’s saying when she’s having an episode. You’re not really going to let a teenage girl—”

“She called me the harbinger of death, Helo,” she snaps, finally facing him for a brief moment before looking away again. “Those were the exact words the hybrid used when I went to talk to it.”

He pauses, clearly stunned. “I thought that the hybrid didn’t make any sense at all.”

“Either way, that makes _two_ headcases telling me that I’m gonna bring people death and destruction.” Her voice is dark as she slumps over the railing, eyes hazily focused on the game going on below him. Even if River_ and_ the hybrid were both supposed to make no sense, it was a hell of a coincidence. Wash tosses the ball through the goal another time and Kara shakes her head. “I was gone for six hours… or two months… or whatever… and I still don’t know what the hell happened to me. Gods,” she hisses. “Maybe I really am a cylon.”

Her eyes snap shut, teeth grit, she looks like the thought is giving her actual physical pain. “Hey,” he says, he moves to touch her hand but she shakes him off. “If you were, I mean, would it really be so bad?” Her eyes open again as she shoots him a glare. “Maybe I’m a little biased but… cylons feel… they still hurt, they still love… how much would it really change if you were actually a cylon?”

Kara doesn’t answer him, just turns away, staring down at the game below—staring, he realizes, at Sam. “I don’t know.” She shakes her head, letting out a sigh. “I…just don’t know anymore.”

“Yeah, well, cylon or not,” he says, big hand patting her on the back. “I still think _you’re_ the same headcase I met back in boot camp.”

Her lips quirk into a small smile. Before she can say anything, Kaylee’s calling up to them from the cargo bay. “Hey ya’ll! We could use a coupl’a more players! C’mon down!”

Karl turns towards Kara with a nod of his head. “Why not?”

She gives a little shrug as she shoves herself back from the railing. “What the hell.”

He lets her take the lead down the stairs and she walks out to the middle of the playing area. There’s even a bit of a swagger in her step, and Karl grins. “So,” she says, her eyes watching Sam toss the ball back and forth between his hands, “how do you actually play this game?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Sam flashes her a small smile.

“I’ll just have to play it by ear then.” Kara lunges forward, knocking the ball out of his hands. Everyone clicks right back into game mode, and Jayne is the first one to lunge for Kara. She easily side-steps him and spins, tossing it easily through the hoop in the ceiling.

Karl just smiles. Yup. Still the same Kara he’s always known.

The game finally ends when Wash throws his hands in the air and says he has to leave. “Unless you all prefer to crash land on Beaumonde, which could also be arranged.”

Later, after they’ve landed, Karl manages to catch Kara, all packed, and ready to go.  “Your stop?” he asks.

“Yeah. This is me.” She jerks her head in the direction of the open bay doors. “New planet. New life.” She shakes her head.

His heart sinks a little bit at another goodbye. There’s been so many of them lately and this is one he really doesn’t want to do. “Hang on a minute.”

“What?”

He pulls a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it to her. “Take this.”

“What is it?”

“I got it from Gaeta. Apparently he and Dee and Hoshi were working on some kind of coded communications network for the fleet, that’s the access information. Alliance won’t be able to track the messages. So now you have no excuse not to call me,” he adds with a pointed look. Kara actually smiles at him and he can’t help himself. He pulls her into a bear hug. “You take care of yourself, alright?”

“Alright,” she says when he finally lets go of her. She gives him a small smile. “I’m gonna miss you, Karl.”

“Well you’ve got my number… or… you will when I have one.” He shrugs. “Seriously though. Good luck out there.”

“Don’t you mean _good hunting_?” she says, and turns. He frowns, watching her walk out into the port alone—at least when he leaves he’ll have his family with him, but it still feels like a kick in the gut watching his friend disappear into the crowd.

=======================

Kara can’t believe it’s only been two weeks since she touched down on Beaumonde. Atoll City is just as big and loud and overpriced as Caprica City had been, maybe worse. She’s been getting by on the platinum she’s won at cards but even her good luck won’t hold out forever. She’s going to have to find a job soon or starve to death—assuming she can still die or die again or whatever.  
   
Of course, she’s not so responsible with her money that she doesn’t enjoy a stool every now and again at the Maidenhead Bar. She gets herself a drink and settles down at a table near the back, trying to figure out what her next move is going to be. Kara still hasn’t got any kind of permanent place to stay; she’s been living in a really crappy hotel with some rather enormous bugs for roommates. Finding a new place to live has to be sooner rather than later.

Kara raises her glass to her lips, tossing the drink back. She doesn’t notice the person approaching her table until he’s settled into the seat across from her. Narrowing her eyes, she sets her glass aside. “What are you doing here, Sammy?”

Sam just shrugs, leaning his elbows on the table in front of him. “Well, I was supposed to move down to this planet with my wife—”

“In this bar,” she cuts him off.

“Same as you, I guess.” He gestures towards her empty glass with his full one. “Looking to get drunk.”

Kara takes a moment to just look at him. His cheeks are covered in stubble and he looks like he hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in the last two weeks. She rolls her eyes at herself, even as she starts talking. “Frak, Sam, you look like hell. You holding up okay?”

“Not bad. I’m starting a factory job in a couple of days, but I’m not going to get paid for another week. What about you? Got any plans?”

Kara shrugs. “Getting by, just kind of playing it by ear.”

Sam shifts in his seat, tilting his head from side to side, apparently working out a kink in his neck. “Where the hell’ve you been staying?”

He gives her some vague answer about sleeping on someone’s floor. Kara bites her lip, the wheels already turning. It’s not like she’s particularly happy to see Sam, but hell if she isn’t relieved to see a familiar face. And if he’s really got a job lined up…well, splitting the rent on that rattrap hotel room would make it a bit easier for both of them. “Okay look, I got some room at my place. Just… for now, you can crash with me if you want.”

Later that night, she lies in bed with her back to Sam’s trying to wrap her mind around how frakking surreal the past couple of days have been. Turns out, for once, she’d been right and Lee’d been wrong. Here she is, no job, no home, and no friends— lying in some dingy hotel room with a cylon who is still her husband by vow if not by law or anything else—completely adrift on solid ground.  
   
So much for a fresh start.

\--To Be Continued--


	5. Chapter 5

The beeping alarm cuts through the fog of sleep and drags Lee back into reality. He groans as he rolls over in his bed, arm slapping out to turn off the incessant noise. He lies flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, scrubbing a hand over his face. Eventually, he finds the energy to drag himself out of bed, shuffle over to the window, and draw back the curtains. Below his window, shuttles and hovercrafts whiz by, people shuffle and shout on the sidewalks below—just another morning in Capitol City.

Lee has his morning routine down to a science. Routine keeps him going, keeps him feeling sane; it’s something he can hang on to from his old life. Alarm at 7, out of bed by 7:03, showered by 7:18, dressed and dry by 7:24, and grabbing a meal bar and cup of coffee on the street corner at 7:31 exactly. All that means he gets to the government office at 7:55, with five minutes to make himself look busy by the time his boss gets there.

One year of working for the central offices in Osiris, and Lee’s barely managed to get out of the mailroom—he never thought he’d miss the piles of paperwork from running the air group. He knew his decision to try to make an impact on Alliance government—trying to get representation for the planets and moons that were now home to thousands of Colonial citizens—was going to be a long, arduous process. He’s had no delusions about that at all. But he hadn’t realized how mind-numbingly tedious the days were going to be until he finally had enough pull to make something happen.

Last month, Lee had the luck to get promoted as assistant to Lawrence Colby, one of the lower level officials who dealt with the Alliance-appointed governors out in the Kalidasa star system. For the first week or so, Lee’s work mostly involved sorting requests for supplies, but ten days after he took the new position, a request for military backup had crossed his desk, and since then everything’s been utter chaos.

Lee gets to his desk at 7:54 this morning, with a whole minute to spare, when he notices the door to Colby’s office is ajar and there is a soft blue light and a low rumble of voices coming from within. Lee casts a brief glance at his watch, his boss is never in this early. Dropping his briefcase by his desk, Lee walks up to the door, knocking against the doorframe before peering into the room. “Mr. Colby?”

Colby is sitting by his desk, eyes fixed on the large holo-screen on the far wall. He jumps a bit, hearing Lee’s voice, and hits a button, pausing the footage he’s been watching. “Lee, what are you doing here so early?”

“It’s eight o’clock.”

Colby looks at his clock, startling when he confirms the time. “Gorram it!” he groans, fist striking the desk.

Lee raises an eyebrow. “Have you been here all night? What’s going on?”

“Trouble.” He gestures towards the screen with the remote. There is a single figure on the screen, backlit and blurry, so Lee can’t make out any of the features. “The trouble on Severance is completely out of hand. Now we’ve got a group coming forward and taking responsibility for the Severance Riots. I don’t think the media’s gotten a hold of it yet, the tech people are trying to shut down their signal but they’re having a hell of a time.”

Lee folds his arms across his chest; there’s something about the on-screen silhouette that looks strangely familiar. “What is the group saying exactly?”

“Oh just some bullshit about how Severance is only the beginning, that they’re not going to stop until the citizens in the rim worlds finally have a say in how they’re governed.” Colby just shakes his head. “They don’t get how hard it is to make the system work. The ‘Verse is so big there’s no way to make sure that the government can run smoothly _without _the Alliance-appointed officials. Anything else would be chaos. They have no appreciation for the work we do down here.”

“Maybe… maybe they have a point. Maybe there’s another way to organize the local and universal government system.”

“They murdered an Alliance-appointed governor. There’s no point they have that’s worth considering.” Colby levels a hard look at him, but Lee stands straight, refusing to cave to the scrutiny. “You weren’t an Independent were you? Because they _lost_ the war.”

Lee feels a prickle of rage—he’s been the commander of a battlestar, a top government representative, he could do Colby’s job with both hands tied behind his back—but he holds his hands up, shaking his head. “I’m just an assistant,” he says.

Colby gives a grunt that sounds approving. “I left some papers on your desk, I want you to get those back to me by lunch.” He sits back in his seat, rummaging through a drawer for a bottle of pills. “And can you get me a cup of coffee? My head is killing me.”

“Of course.” Lee sighs, shaking his head as he walks out of the office. He heads down to the break room, filling up a mug with coffee before returning to Colby’s office. The voice coming from the recording is almost familiar, muffled somewhat by the door, but Lee is positive he’s heard it before. Colby shuts the recording off the moment Lee knocks on the door.

Coffee delivered, Lee sits back down at his desk, unable to shake the feeling that there is something more going on. He reaches down, taking the slip of paper taped onto the underside of his desk and turns it over in his hands, examining the series of numbers written across it. Dee had given it to him a year ago, told him it should come in handy in case of an emergency. Lee supposes that a civil uprising falls well into that category.

One set of keystrokes later, and he’s tapping into an untraceable channel in the cortex, another set and a database pops up on the screen—information on most, if not all, the Colonial citizens living within the ‘Verse, including contact numbers, aliases, and—of most interest to him right now—planet or moon of residence. Lee pulls up a search box and puts in a search for all Colonial citizens on the moon Severance.

He is not at all surprised by the results.

=======================

Even with the bosses in a complete panic, Lee still manages to get the week off that he has so desperately needed. A few weeks ago, he had gotten a wave from his father telling him that Laura’s test results have finally come back clean and her doctors have pronounced her cancer-free. He insisted that Lee come to stay with them for a while and Lee promised he would as soon as he got the chance.

He’s only really had the chance to visit them once before, but he finds the way to their apartment from the spaceport with ease. The door swings open and his father is standing in front of him with a dishtowel slung over his shoulder. “Lee,” he says, pulling him into an embrace. “It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too, Dad.” Lee returns the hug and steps into the apartment. He glances over his shoulder and sees Roslin sitting on the couch, flipping through a book. Lee nods to her. “Laura. Thanks for having me.”

“It’s our pleasure,” she says, getting out of her seat. “How was your flight?”

“It was fine, uneventful.”

He shuts the door behind him, taking a glance around at their apartment. The two of them have really taken to the whole domesticity thing, and both of them seem so comfortable with their retirement. He knows he should be happy for them, really he should, and he is; he’s just having a hard time pushing aside the thoughts of his empty apartment he’ll have to return to in a week.

Lee slips off his jacket and undoes the top button of his shirt. “Something smells really good.”

“Dinner’s almost ready.” His father looks back towards the kitchen like he’s trying to decide how much longer he has before he has to return to his cooking. “How’re you doing, Son? You never call anymore,” he says in that voice that always manages to make Lee feel like an irresponsible teenager, as he returns to the kitchen.

“I know, I know. Work’s just been… really crazy. I haven’t really had the time.” He sets his suitcase by the couch and opens it drawing out a bottle. “I brought some shimmerwine, a little congratulations for your clean bill of health.”

“This is wonderful; thank you, Lee,” Laura says, taking the bottle. “Let’s just get some glasses.” Lee follows her towards the kitchen, but stops in the doorway, just watching his dad working away at the pans on the stove.

“So, what’s been taking up all your time, lately?” Laura asks, rooting through a cabinet. “Does it have anything to do with that governor who was killed out on Severance?”

“You heard about that?” He knows the media’s been having a field day—if it bleeds, it leads—but he’s been avoiding the news since the incident.

“It’s been all over the news here,” Bill says, glancing up from his cooking.

“What’ve they been saying?” Lee asks, finally stepping into the room.

Laura sets the glasses on the counter and presses the small mechanism that allows the bottle to open itself with a pop. “That there was a riot, townspeople stormed the mayor’s home, the attacks have been linked to former members of the Independents, and Alliance officials have not been able to get control of the situation.”

“I guess they haven’t said anything about how the governor was forcing a _protection tax_ on the citizens,” Lee says wryly. He shakes his head, unbuttoning the cuffs of his sleeves. “The riots have been a problem, but that’s not really what my boss is worried about.” Laura glances back at him over the top of her glasses, curiosity piqued. “There’ve been broadcasts on the Cortex from Severance, and the Alliance is working very hard to shut them down remotely, but for every frequency they kill, they just keep showing up elsewhere. _That_ is the situation they can’t get control of.”

“What are the broadcasts?” she asks.

“They’re a call to the citizens, that it’s time to stand up for representation, for the people to govern themselves, that what happened on Severance is only the beginning. I haven’t heard much of them, only the top-level clearance officials have heard them, but I caught a bit of a broadcast my boss was listening to and…the voice sounded familiar. So I decided to do a little research of my own.” He huffs a humorless laugh. “Guess who I found was living on Severance.”

Lee can see the wheels turning in Laura’s head, and it takes her all of about five seconds to put the pieces together. “Tom Zarek.”

“The one and only.”

“To be honest, I’m surprised he didn’t start getting himself into trouble sooner.” Bill removes the frying pan from the heat.

“I’ve never been a fan of his methods,” Lee says, swallowing hard. “But in just a few weeks Zarek’s gotten the attention of the ruling officials in a way I wouldn’t have gotten even with years of work..” He shakes his head. “Even something like this isn’t going to change the way the Alliance works, there may be talk for a few weeks, months maybe, about electing local officials. People will pay attention for a few weeks and then something else will happen and everyone will forget the people on Severance who took a stand for themselves. The Alliance will appoint a new governor and everything will just go back to the way it was.” Lee shakes his head. “Something big needs to happen, bigger than Zarek. I just… I have no clue what.”

“We’re just not looking in the right places yet.” She says, holding a glass out to him. “Something will present itself.” 

“Doesn’t feel like it right now,” Lee mutters into his glass, before raising it to his lips. He tilts his head back and before he knows it he’s drained the entire glass.

“You’re not having regrets, are you, Lee?” Laura asks, eyebrow raised as she takes a sip from her own glass. “About taking this job?”

“Regrets?” He moves for the bottle of wine.

_You’re gonna give all that up so you can bum around some dingy city? Work in a factory? Fade into the crowd?_

Lee shakes his head, trying to force the memory out of his mind, just as he has been for the entire year. He just reminded himself that there was no point in thinking about the what-ifs, and what could have been, because none of that matters anymore. “No. None at all. I actually can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing.”

He tacks on a nod for emphasis, pleased. It doesn’t even sound like a lie.

===================

“I thought you were supposed to be at work.”

Kara doesn’t turn around when she hears Sam’s voice behind her, just keeps flipping through the manual she’s looking at. “Yeah, funny thing about getting fired. They don’t really like it when you show up after that.”

“Fired?” he echoes.

“Yup.”

 “Again?”

She doesn’t even bother to answer him this time. He knows everything he needs to.

“Frak, Kara.” She hears him coming as he walks up behind her, tries to touch her, and she shrugs him off. “What is going on with you?”

“Nothing is _going on_. Okay!?” she snaps as she spins around. “It was a crappy job loading up _crates_ for frak’s sake. Besides, I make more money in one night at the card table than a week at that disgusting factory. It’s not a big deal.”

“When you can’t hold a job for more than two months, it’s a big deal.”

Kara swings her arms open wide, gesturing to the room around them. It isn’t exactly the Caprica Grand Towers, but the apartment is a step up from the hotel room they’d lived in for nearly two months. “I haven’t missed my half of the rent once, so just get off my back.”

She shakes her head, feeling her skin practically crawling with the urge to get out. She starts for the bedroom, grabbing her wallet and her keys off of the nightstand.

“This is about more than paying the rent,” he says, taking up the doorway. “We could have more than this, Kara.” 

He sounds so frakking earnest that she wants to laugh. “More than this? What? A house with a frakking picket fence?”

“We could have a _home_.” He’s never said it out loud before, but she’s known this was coming. “This is what our lives are now. You and me. Here. And maybe it’s not the best, but we could make something out of this. We have to, because things aren’t going to change.”

Kara rakes her nails through her hair. “This isn’t my home, Sam. This place is _never_ going to be my home.”

“You’re not even trying!” he snaps. Kara blinks briefly and the anger is gone; Sam is shaking his head. “I know this isn’t easy. It isn’t easy for either of us. But I am _trying_ to make this work, I just want us to have a normal life.”

“Normal?” She scoffs.  “You’re a…robot and I’m a zombie and there is _nothing _in our lives that is normal! Why can’t you get that through your skull?”  She shoves right past him heading for the doorway and he doesn’t make a move to stop her.

He just calls after her. “And how exactly is that ‘project’ of yours going to fix that?” Kara feels a prickle of anger along her spine at his words. She knew that’s what this was all about. “You’re throwing your money and your time away on that thing, and for what?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” She shakes her head, her hand gripping the doorknob.

“Well then why don’t you try explaining it to me?”

Kara doesn’t answer, just slams the door shut behind her. He doesn’t follow her, even if he did, she wouldn’t stop. Out in the hallway, out on the street, it still doesn’t feel like she can get enough air to breathe—most of it is toxic as hell, anyway—and her skin just won’t stop crawling. “Godsdamnit!” she hisses, kicking an empty beer can lying on the sidewalk. 

Sam should know by now how much she hates it here, how much she hates this life. Stuck. Going nuts from cabin fever and she’s sure that she could go anywhere on this entire world and not get rid of it. She only had one answer, one solution that was going to make it go away. Why the hell couldn’t he understand that?

Kara’s at the Maidenhead bar before she even realizes where her feet are carrying her. She makes her way up to the bar, takes up her normal seat, and orders her usual. So far, she’s found that booze is really the only thing that’ll make her skin stop crawling for a little while. The barkeep hands her her drink and she turns in her seat, eyes sweeping over the crowd.

She nearly chokes a little when she glances at the stairs and Malcolm Reynolds steps into her field of vision. She blinks hard for a second and realizes most of the crew of _Serenity_ has just walked into the bar. Kara practically jumps out of her seat, shoving her way through the crowd and gets to the bottoms of the stairs about the same time they do. “Long time no see, Captain,” she says.

“Fancy runnin’ into you here, Captain.” Mal flashes her a grin.

“What brings you to this shithole city?” she asks, her gaze wandering over the others—Zoë, Jayne, Simon, River, finally settling on Tyrol standing with Kaylee near the back of the group.

“Just some business,” he says. “Got a meetin’ with some suppliers, nowish, actually.” His gaze flicks over to a table by a curtained off area. “We can have words later.”

Kara traces a finger around the rim of her glass. “Mind if I borrow your mechanics for a while?”

“Consider ‘em lent,” Mal says before disappearing into the crowd with Zoë and Jayne. Kara catches Chief’s eye and nods her head towards a corner and sits. The pair join her a couple of minutes later each with a drink in their hand. 

Tyrol looks almost tentative as he sits across from her. Kara can’t really blame him. “It’s… been a while, Starbuck.”

She lets out a humorless laugh. “Starbuck. It’s been a long time since anyone’s called me that.”

He cracks a smile. “Well, I guess I can think of a few other things I used to call you but they’re not fit for polite company,” he says, glancing to Kaylee, who swats his arm.

“What didja wanna talk to us ‘bout?” Kaylee asks, leaning her elbows on the table.

Kara gives them a little conspiratorial grin. “I needed help from a couple of good mechanics. Then I saw you two and figured I could settle.” She lets out a real laugh in what feels like the first time in weeks. “A couple months ago, I bought a ship. Not huge, but some independent transport group used it ‘til they got something bigger and better. Turns out she doesn’t run so good, but I’ve been working to get her up again. I figure it’s my ticket out of this place.”

“Anythin’ needs fixin’ Galen and I can get it done for ya.” The girl beams and Kara thinks suddenly that she reminds her a little bit of Cally.

“Yeah,” Kara leans back in her seat. “Well, she’s getting there, slowly but surely. There’s just one part I don’t think I can actually get.”

“What is it?” Tyrol asks. “Captain Tightpants has a hell of a lot of connections.”

“Yeah, well.” Kara rubs at her temples. “Short of flying back to _Galactica_ and ripping one out of a Raptor, I can’t figure out how to get my hands on an FTL drive.”

“FTL?” Tyrol arches an eyebrow at her. “I mean, unless you’re planning on running from something big, there’s not exactly a need for one. What’s going on, Captain?”

Kara shuts her eyes. “Nothing yet. It’s a hunch, but…” she opens them, shaking her head. “I can’t shake the crazy thought that we might need it one day.” She’s pretty sure she sounds completely crazy right now. She’s also pretty sure that Chief is used to it.

Kaylee snaps her fingers, her eyes lighting up. “Oh I got it! Ya’ll split up your ships right? Sent ‘em all out to different worlds? Well, those ships had the drives, right? Find one of those ships and y’ can get the part.”

Kara looks over at Tyrol who’s grinning just as much as Kaylee is. She briefly realizes she’s never really seen him look that happy before—seems like living in the ‘verse has turned out well for some people. “So what’s the going rate on that kind of salvage operation?”

“I could talk it over with the Captain, but I think we can get you a friends discount.” Tyrol takes a sip of his drink, he sets it down on the table before his gaze meets Kara’s. “That is assuming we’re actually friends.”

“Why wouldn’t ya’ll be friends?” Kaylee asks. “You worked together and lived together so long, I figured all ya’ll on _Galactica_ were practically family.”

Tyrol reaches out, closing his hand over Kaylee’s. “Where I’m from, most people don’t really take as well as you do to the whole cylon thing.”

“But I don’t see how that changes anythin’. Yer still a person, Galen, and—”

“Look,” Kara cuts in. She clears her throat, trying to force words out. “It’s… I don’t know. Living with Sam… he’s… still the same Sam I met on Caprica, no matter what he is. And that makes you the same Tyrol you always were so… yeah, I guess that makes us friends.”

“And you’re not just saying it to get cheap parts for your ship?” he asks with a grin.  “So… about you and Sam…” he trailed off, his eyes focusing on something over Kara’s shoulder. She turns in her seat, above the din of the bar, she can hear screams. “What the frak is going on?”

Kara jumps out of her seat, shoving her way through the crowd, and dodging a flying body as she does so. Where the people have parted, River stands, her eyes blank, looking like she’s completely freaking out. Gods, the kid is going to get herself into trouble, the way she’s lashing out. Kara rushes forward, grabbing her by the arms. “Hey, hey! Calm the frak down!”

With what seems like no effort at all, River breaks out of Kara’s grip. She spins, her leg connecting with Kara’s torso and sends her flying back into the crowd. Kara feels a sharp pain as her head connects with the floor, then the world goes black. 

=========================

When consciousness comes filtering back to Kara, everything is just bright shapes. She groans, lifting her head despite protests from her aching body. As her vision clears, Kara realizes she’s lying in _Serenity_’s infirmary.

“You’re awake.” Simon appears at her side.

“Guess so,” she says, propping herself up on her elbows with some difficulty. “Mind telling me what the frak happened back there?”

Simon takes a steeling breath, his eyes shut. “I don’t know what happened exactly. I was up on the balcony, but I saw her staring at the television screen, the news was playing and something in that story must have… triggered something in her, a memory, something that caused her great distress, and she lashed out.” Simon hangs his head. “I don’t know what caused it exactly. We’ve got her sedated for now, she’s sleeping mostly but she keeps muttering something about… Miranda? I don’t… I don’t know what she’s talking about…”

“What I still don’t get is how a stick like that has the muscle to knock me out, let alone throw me across the room.” Lords, her head is throbbing. She hasn’t felt a blow like that since she fought that cylon in the Delphi museum. It occurs to her suddenly that there’s still one cylon left, Kara briefly wonders if it could be the girl—it’d explain a lot, the strength, the prophecy crap. But one look at her brother, and she knows that can’t be right.

“I don’t either,” he says, turning back to the papers he’d been going through. “But I’m going to find out.” He looks up suddenly. “Oh, you’re free to go by the way. No concussion, but you bruised a few ribs and you’re going to have one hell of a headache.”

“Thanks, doc,” she groans, getting to her feet, then pauses and turns back to him. “For what it’s worth, hope you figure out what’s going on with her.”

Kara’s head doesn’t stop hurting the entire walk back from the docks. She fumbles in her pocket for her keys and manages to jam them into the lock and get the door open before stumbling through. The apartment is dark, and even though she’s far from quiet when she slams the door shut, it doesn’t seem to wake up Sam. Good thing, she doesn’t think she’d be able to take it if he decides to start in on her drinking habits right now. She makes it as far as the couch before she just collapses, shuts her eyes tight, hoping for sleep so that this day can just be over already.

Morning comes way too early, and Kara is woken abruptly by the incessant beep of an incoming wave. “Sam,” she groans, not bothering to open her eyes. “Sam.” No reply. “Godsdamnit, Sammy, pick up the frakking phone already!” Still nothing.

She lets out a frustrated huff of air as she rolls off the couch, brushing her hair out of her face. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” she hisses under her breath as she shuffles towards the blinking telephonix screen. A few keystrokes and suddenly Karl Agathon’s face is staring at her from the screen. His eyes are wide, panicked; he’s either panting or hyperventilating. She feels the fog and the dizziness fading away, replaced with a rush of adrenaline. Something isn’t right. “Karl? What’s going on?”

He swallows hard, like he can’t get the words out. He takes a few shallow breaths and then a deep one before trying again. “Sharon and Hera are gone.”

\---To Be Continued---


	6. Chapter 6

Lee’s visit is over far too soon. Back on Osiris, everything falls back into the same pattern it always does. But this time, when he walks into the office at 7:55 exactly his first day back, Lee isn’t surprised to find it in somewhat of a frenzy, Colby standing at the heart of it. What does surprise him, however, is the relatively easy mood he finds his boss in.

“Morning, Mr. Colby,” he says, standing in the doorway.

“Morning, Lee.” His boss is practically grinning as he watches the morning news. “Have a good trip?”

“Yes…” he raises an eyebrow, unsure of what could have happened in his absence that would cause such a complete one-eighty in his boss’s demeanor. “Is the situation on Severance under control?”

“Huh? Oh, that.” He waves his hand. “No, still haven’t been able to subdue the rebels, but that don’t matter right now. There’s bigger fish to fry. They kept it out of the news for a few days, but I_ figured_ that if someone leaked the story, it’d get the press off of our department’s back. Oh, the boys down in the Blue Sun System office are gonna be shitting themselves.”

Lee crosses his arms across his chest as he steps into the office. “What happened? Another Reaver attack?” It can’t be that of course, the Alliance writes them off as superstitious mumbo-jumbo, but Lee’s heard some of the Blue Sun System assistants discussing the papers they’ve come across—invariably, these rim planets see far too many brutal attacks leaving entire towns destroyed in the wake. No one ever quite says what they are; they’re afraid even as they hide in their Core planet safety.

Colby sank back in his seat, kicking his legs up onto his desk. “Did you hear about the Alliance ship that got destroyed out by Deadwood?”

Lee nods. He’d seen the news story a few mornings ago on Ariel. An entire Alliance cruiser, a ship resembling four conjoined skyscrapers, had been completely obliterated—nuked—out in the Blue Sun System. Last time he’d heard there hadn’t been any indication of what had attacked the ship, but that the Alliance would be sending out another cruiser to investigate.

“Well it turns out-oh hey, hold on, here it is again.” Colby picks up his remote, unmuting the screen on the far wall.

Several images of corpses laid strewn about the streets flicker across the screen, along with the words _Rediscovery of a Lost Planet_.

_Hours ago,_ the newscaster says,_ We received official word from Alliance headquarters about the catastrophe on Miranda. Miranda, a small planet in the Blue Sun System, was settled and terraformed several years ago. We’ve heard very little from the planet since it’s original settlement, as it was a prosperous and peaceful planet. However, shocking developments reveal that Miranda’s fate was not so peaceful.  
_  
Lee shifts his weight, already he can tell there is something wrong here. For one, he hasn’t even heard of Miranda—hasn’t seen it on any of the maps of the ‘Verse, hasn’t heard anyone talk about it. There’s even some note of doubt in the newscaster’s voice, like he’s never heard of it either.  
_  
Following the destruction of I.A.V. Magellan last week, the I.A.V. Dortmunder was sent to investigate the disturbances in the Blue Sun System. Upon approach of the Burnham protostar, the crew reported a bizarre sight—two unidentified starships in orbit around Miranda. _

Lee’s stomach starts to churn as footage of the approach to Miranda plays on the screen. In orbit around the planet are two Cylon Basestars. One basestar makes sense, the rebel cylons had gone off to find their way in this ‘Verse just as the Colonials have, but the second ship seems to have come from nowhere. It feels like a sucker-punch to the gut.  
_  
Investigation of the planet’s surface found the entire population of Miranda had been killed off by the intruders from these alien ships. Alliance troops have been able to put the entire planet under lockdown and are in the process of detaining the intruders in temporary security facilities. Not much is known about the attackers yet, with the exception of one chilling detail—they consist of several groups of identical people. Examination of their ships discovered lifeless bodies—also identical to the intruders on the planet’s surface, including several models, which were not found on the planet. _

A series of photographs fills the screen, every one of them a cylon face that Lee knows well.

_If you have seen one of these individuals, please notify Alliance authorities at once. They are highly dangerous persons and already, there have been reports of them found on Persephone, New Melbourne, and Beaumonde._

Beaumonde. Gods, Kara. Wasn’t that where she…—he’s been trying so hard not to think of her for so long—is she there? Lee’s mind is racing. But she’s not a cylon, they have no reason to take her. Unless…

_ Security footage from the Elkskin Chemical Company on Beaumonde shows one of these individuals masquerading as an employee and his subsequent arrest. _

The black ink of a familiar tattoo stands out in stark relief on the screen.

Sam. They got Sam. The thought registers and is followed immediately by one that makes him want to throw up. If they got him, do they have Kara too? Have they been together all this time? Lee doesn’t know, can’t remember. His mind is reeling; the room is threatening to start spinning circles around him. Lee tries to remember the other planets cylons have been taken from. Have they gotten Athena? Would they take Helo and Hera too? Tigh ought to be out there somewhere; has the Alliance taken him too? Is Chief safe aboard _Serenity_? He doesn’t know; he doesn’t know. “Gods…”

“What was that?” Colby turns to him with a bewildered expression on his face. 

Lee needs to get a hold of himself, right frakking now, before he blows his cover. “Nothing… it’s just…” Lee’s mouth has gone completely dry and he grasps for something, anything to say. “It’s a real tragedy.”

“That it is. It’s also not our problem. Now, I have a meeting to get to in ten,” he says, waving Lee out of the room. “Get yourself a cup of coffee or something, it looks like you’re about to pass out.”

“Yes, sir,” he says evenly, turning to leave the office. Just before he closes the door, he hears the newscaster say he’ll be keeping them with up to the minute reports with as the ‘Verse’s most trusted name in news.

Lee sinks down at his desk, his mind reeling, thoughts racing too fast for him to get a handle on any of them. On the surface, the answer seems simple: the Cylons are up to their old tricks. The rebel Cylons did take their baseship and left to find their own way in the ‘Verse. Still, the genocide of the population of Miranda seems to fit their MO. And yet, Lee can feel it in his gut that there is something more to it.

He spends the rest of his day trying to dig up anything in the archives about Miranda. Reaches for the phone at least once an hour, too; his fingers itch to call Kara, just to make sure, but… no, right now it’s too dangerous. What if she’s under surveillance? What if he blows it by calling her? Right now, he needs to stay where he is, using his connections in whatever way he can. Besides, she knows how to take care of herself.

By the time the office closes he’s found nothing about Miranda, like all the files on that planet have been expunged—deliberately covered up. The holes in the data date back to well over a year ago, the earliest that the cylons could have arrived at Miranda in the first place. Something has happened on Miranda, and he’s willing to bet his life on the fact that the Alliance is neck deep in whatever it is. Lee isn’t exactly sure what is going on, but he can already feel the enormity of it and he’s sure that if he can get to the bottom of it, it might just be enough to crack the Alliance’s authoritarian rule.

By the time Lee arrives back at his apartment that evening, there is a message waiting for him.

========================

“Not exactly _home, sweet home_, but she’s mine.” Kara gestures with an open arm around the empty cargo bay. She glances over her shoulder where Karl is standing with a bag slung over his shoulder.

“It’s… nice.” Karl tries to crack a smile.

“You used to be better at bluffing.” She can tell he’s trying to hold it together, but he looks like shit—doesn’t look any better than he did when she first talked to him last week. He looks—and quite frankly smells—like he’s been traveling all that time.  “Come on, let’s find you a place to crash.” She leads him up a flight of stairs and up to a small living area between the bridge and the engine room. “There’re two bunks down there, two back by the galley and two off by the bridge. Pick whichever one you want.”

“Thanks,” he says, wringing the strap of his bag. “I just… didn’t think I could be alone right now.” She watches him as he looks around the interior of the ship. His eyes fall on the galley, the counters stacked with dirty dishes and empty beer cans. “You’ve been living here?”

Kara shrugs as she sinks into a chair. “I never liked the apartment, but it was cheap, close to the factories… after…” she swallows hard, “after they got Sam, I figured this was better.”

“Yeah.” He glances over his shoulder back towards one of the bunks. “I think I’m going to get some rest… it was a long flight.”  
   
“Sure. The head’s through there if you need it.”  
   
“Thanks.” He ducks into the cabin, the hatch sealing shut behind him. Kara’s imagined numerous ways she’d run in to people from her old life. Having Karl over because his family’s been abducted has never been one of them. The same futile anger she’s felt since she hung up the phone and raced into the bedroom to find Sam gone that morning flashes through her again. Kara clenches her fist and lets out a sigh. Waiting’s never been her strong suit but there’s nothing she can do for them right now.

She figures it’ll take a while for Karl to get settled in, so she heads out from the port, towards the marketplace to get some dinner. By the time she returns, he’s showered and changed and looking halfway human again.

“I’ve got food… and beer,” she offers, holding up the bag.

“That sounds great.”

Dinner is awkward, reduced to small talk, because it looks like if Karl has to think too hard about anything he’s going to break. He slouches over the table, staring at his beer can like it holds some kind of answer. Kara tosses hers back, staring at him, trying to think up something to say.  Turns out, she doesn’t have to. After a moment, Karl speaks without looking up. “So,” he says, a forced lightness to his voice. “Looks like you’re not the last cylon after all.”

Kara remembers the pictures of Ellen Tigh that she’d seen on the news broadcasts and tries to laugh as well. “Yeah, who would’ve seen that coming?”

The air rumbles with light laughter for all of about five seconds before silence takes over again.

“It happened so fast.” Karl is still looking down into his beer, shaking his head. “We were sitting down to dinner; I just got back from a long day at work and I wanted to have a nice night at home with my girls and…” He breaks off with a small choking sound. “I heard the door splinter, Hera started crying. I don’t know how many of them there were, I just remember that I didn’t have anything to fight back with, so I grabbed a chair and swung it at one of them and then everything went black.” He finally looks up, his eyes completely bloodshot. “When I woke up, they were gone. There was blood on the floor, I don’t know whose it was. ”

“Hey,” she warns, her voice sharp as she sits forward. “You sound like you’ve already given up on getting them back.”

“Frak, Kara. The Alliance got them. It’s not like the military generally goes around broadcasting where they take their prisoners. And even if we did know where they are, you and I are hardly enough manpower to take them out on our own.”

Kara gets up from her seat, walks around to the other side of the table. She grabs him by the shirtfront and hauls him to his feet—she fleetingly thinks he ought to be too heavy but he doesn’t seem to have any fight in him right now and she feels a flash of anger in her spine. “What the frak happened to you? The Helo I know would never have dreamed of giving up on his wife and kid. So you’d better get your ass in gear, because we are going to get out there and we are going to get them back.” 

He’s watching her intently as she finally loosens her grip on his shirt. “How do you know that?”

“Because I know where they are!” The words slip out, not the way she’s been planning on revealing that piece of information. As Karl’s eyes go wide, she starts to turn away, but he grabs her shoulder and she stays with him.

“You know where they are? Why the frak didn’t you say something?”

“I don’t know_ exactly_,” she says, taking a step back. “But I have an idea, well, a lead. I just don’t know how reliable it is. I got a message over the Colonial frequency Dee set up. No picture, no audio, just the message _Prisoners en route to location. More information to follow,_ followed by a set of jump coordinates.”

“Who sent it?” Karl’s starting to sound alive again.

“Not a clue, but it has to be one of us. I’ve been trying to milk ‘em for a little more…anything, but nothing yet…” She groans and shakes her head. “Anyways, the coordinates put you out in the Blue Sun System, my guess? Real close to Miranda.”

Karl looks like he’s trying very hard not to get his hopes up. He takes a deep, steeling breath. “It’s a start… but… you said they’re jump coordinates?”

“Which means we need an FTL drive,” she finishes his thought. “I’m already on it.”

=====================

Kara keeps Karl busy over the next couple of days—going around the city, running errands, just trying to take up time so they don’t have to think. They don’t have a lot to go on yet, so it’s better to just keep occupied.

They’re heading back to where the ship’s grounded at the docks, when Kara hears a rumbling noise behind them. She turns around, stepping to the side, just as a familiar land vehicle comes to a stop beside them—_Serenity_’s mule with Jayne at the wheel. “Got a delivery for you,” he grunts.

Kara turns to look at the rest of the vehicle’s occupants, Kaylee and Chief, whose head is covered with some kind of ridiculous monstrosity. It is red, orange, and yellow, with flaps that come down over the ears and a large puff adorning the top. “What the frak is that on your head?”

Chief’s face turns a color almost as bright as the hat.

“It’s_ my_ hat.” Jayne turns a completely unmasked sneer over his shoulder towards Tyrol. “Better not get shot or nothin’ while he’s wearin’ it.”

“It was my idea.” Kaylee pipes up. She chances a glance over her shoulder before leaning down towards Kara. “I fig’red that if he was wearin’ a hat like that, no one’d be lookin’ at his face and realizin’, y’know, what he was.”

It hits her for the first time that it’s not safe for Chief out here, that if anyone recognizes him from the pictures on the news, he’s going to end up just like Sam and Sharon and Hera. She climbs up into the vehicle, motioning for Karl to follow. She watches the look that passes briefly between him and Chief.

“You holding up okay, Helo?” Chief asks, his voice low, concerned even.

“I’ll be better once we find them,” he replies with a sad smile. “Where’s the drive?”

“Back aboard _Serenity_,” Chief says as Jayne starts the engine back up. “Didn’t want to start hauling it around until we found you guys.”

“Well you found us; time to get to work.”

Their ship is parked at the other side of the docks. Once they get the drive loaded up onto the mule, she sends Chief and Kaylee back to her ship with Helo.

“You’re not coming?” Helo asks.

“Not yet. I’ve got some things to take care of here,” she says, motioning in the direction in which Jayne has gone. “Gotta see a man about some weapons. You know the way back, right?”

He nods, climbing into the back seat of the mule. Chief calls out to Kara from the driver’s seat. “You know this is going to take a while right? It’s not like the technology is completely compatible. It may take a week, maybe more to get it hooked up right.”

“Can you do it or not?” she snaps.

“We can,” Kaylee replies.

“Good. Then just get it done.”

When they’re gone, Kara heads up to where Mal is standing on the catwalk. “So, how much do I owe you?” she asks, leaning against the railing. “I’m sort of strapped right now.”

He waves it off. “Reckon we’ll figure somethin’ out eventually.” After a moment, he adds, “Don’t think I’m lettin’ you off easy, neither. Gave up a perfectly good hauling job—legal one too—to get this to you as soon as possible.”

“Then why did you come back?” She’s grateful—beyond grateful even—for everything he’s done, but she still can’t figure out why he’s helping them. This isn’t Mal’s fight. He’s got no interest in what happens to a couple of cylons, he’s got his crew to look after, his own life to support. Hell, it’d be a mess of trouble for him if he got caught.

His reply is fast. “You’re part of my crew.”

“Mal, we were on your ship for a few weeks over a year ago.”

“You’re part of my crew, Captain. Wanna tell me why we’re arguin’ about this?”

She stares at him for a moment, then feels a small grin forming, despite herself. “Can’t think of a single good reason, Captain.”

“‘Sides, anything to, well,_ frak_ with the Alliance goes down as good day’s work in my mind.” Kara bursts out laughing and Mal flashes her a grin. “New mechanic does a hell of a lot of cursin’, couldn’t help pickin’ it up my own self.”

“Chief tell you what’s been going on?”

“Don’t spend too much time watchin’ the news, but I got a fair idea.” He folds his arms, mirroring her position leaning against the railing. “What’re y’all gonna need to get your people back?”

Kara starts talking. Eventually, the two of them go off to find Jayne who is all too happy to discuss weapons and blowing things up. Unsurprisingly, tactics is not his strong point, but he seems to show a strong fondness for grenades, something Kara assumes will probably come in handy in the coming days. A few hours later, she heads out, in a hurry suddenly to get back to her ship—_back to her friends_—and see what’s going on there.

On her way to the loading bay, she passes the infirmary and pauses by the door. On a whim, she checks to see if the door is locked—it isn’t and the room is empty. She remembers Simon telling her that he was determined to find out what’s been going on with his sister. She also remembers River’s fit, screaming her head off about a harbinger of death; she remembers being in a bar, being thrown backwards across the room, knocked unconscious by that stick of a girl.

She moves. Kara goes through drawers looking for folders, files, anything that the doc may have discovered about his sister, any answer as to why she knew the things she did. Maybe once she figured out what River was she would stand half a chance at figuring out what she was too.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

River’s voice nearly makes Kara jump. She sets down the folder she’s holding. “Yeah. Yeah. I know. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t exist.” Kara sneers, and turns to see the girl standing on her tiptoes, leaning against the door frame. She levels Kara with a look that manages to make her feel like a complete moron.

“In Simon’s lab,” she says bluntly, lucidly. “Going through his files.”

Kara steps forward, watching River turn in a circle slipping right out of that sharp moment into something softer. She decides a direct question might be the best place to start. “What are you?”

River holds her hands in front of her face, studying her fingers for a moment with great intent. “Organs,” she replies. “Cells, molecules, atoms of protons and—”

“Cut the crap!” Kara hisses. “You know what I meant. What are you?”

“That’s not the answer you want,” River says, sitting down not unnerved in the slightest by the edge to Kara’s voice.

She shakes her head. “You’re not human. You can’t be.”

“I am a bipedal primate, erect body with highly developed brain. I am a human.” River looks at Kara, looks her up and down, studying her with those dark eyes.

Kara fights the urge to fidget under the scrutiny. “What!?”

River grins, then clutches her stomach as she bursts out laughing.

“What the frak is so funny?”

“Tick tock, tick tock, stop. You’re not alive. Or you weren’t, but that’s not what makes you special. No one is alive before they are.”

_Great, _Kara thinks. _More cryptic bullshit. _What else should she expect? “You called me the_ harbinger of death_.” 

“You will lead them all to their end,” she says, even-toned as though she were telling her the weather.

“Who’s end?” Kara feels a hint of hysteria creeping into her voice. She’s tried so hard not to think of prophecy, of destiny, she’s pushed it to the far corners of her mind, just trying to live a life that she isn’t supposed to have. She’s supposed to be dead, gone from this world, and sometimes she thinks she’d rather be. “Tell me. Maybe you are human, but you’re something else too! You knew what was happening on Miranda. How the frak did you know that?” 

River looks up at her, rising to her feet, those dark eyes turned towards her once again. For some reason, Kara feels like River’s looking through her, into her. “Everything is pain, dark, murky. You don’t understand, you couldn’t understand.” River’s voice breaks with a sobbing laugh on the last word. She stretches a hand out towards her face, and Kara instinctively draws back. “Your life is a monument to pain but there is a reason, Kara Thrace. You don’t see the patterns.”

A loud scream pierces the room, Kara barely registers that it’s her own voice, barely registers any of her motions as she lunges forward, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and shaking her. “_Shut up! Just shut the frak up!_” she screams again and again, a mantra, pure panic coursing through her and the image of a manic grin on a face dripping with water flashing in her mind.

Again, she barely registers other bodies running into the room, two strong hands pulling her back, pulling River away. The red in her vision dies away, her breathing slowly returning to normal, the world coming back to itself. For a moment, bile rises in her throat but she fights back the urge to vomit. Finally, Kara recognizes Mal holding her by the shoulders and Simon examining the fresh marks on River’s shoulders. The girl is still wailing. “It’s not mine. This memory is not mine. I don’t want it!”

Finally, Mal leads River out of the infirmary, leaving Kara sitting on the examination table with Simon watching her closely. “I’m no psychologist,” he says, walking close to her, “but you don’t happen to be dealing with any unresolved trauma, do you Captain Thrace?”

“There is nothing wrong with me,” she grits out, her fingers digging into the edge of the table. She ducks her head so she won’t have to look at him. It’s a blatant lie. No sane person attacks a teenager over some words—she’s a total basket case.

“River is psychic,” he says softly. “A reader. She can tap into other people’s memories.”

“Well, she’s not allowed to go poking around in my brain!” Kara snaps, looking up. “And for that matter, neither are you.” She shoves herself to her feet and heads for the door.

“I was just wondering if she’d said something to you…something that triggered a flashback. It’s a common symptom.”

Kara comes to a stop in the doorway but doesn’t turn back. Her hands clench and unclench at her sides. She feels the words on the tip of her tongue._ I was captured. I was a prisoner. Son of a bitch made me feel so… _she can’t even finish the sentence in her mind.

“Have you talked to a professional? A friend? Anyone?” he asks.

She angles her head, but doesn’t turn, her voice low and gritty. “Just tell your sister to stay out of my brain from here on in.”

“It’s not healthy to just push things to the back of your mind,” he responds, his voice calm and soothing. “They have a tendency to come back and get you.”  
_  
Don’t I know it,_ she thinks as she walks out—out of the infirmary, off of _Serenity_. She doesn’t stop until she gets to her own ship, and once there she doesn’t bother to check on Karl, or Chief, or Kaylee. She just heads up the stairs, and into the shuttle that she’s been using as her quarters on the ship. She collapses onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

She’s not going to be able to sleep tonight. Kara can feel the thoughts just at the periphery of her mind, everything she’s just pushed to the side—decided that it wasn’t worth dealing with it, that none of it mattered. All of those thoughts, hummed, waiting to be heard, waiting to be felt. She wasn’t sure she had the strength tonight to fight them all off.


	7. Chapter 7

Lee has heard that the word _Beaumonde_ comes from an Earth-that-Was language and means _beautiful world_.  Standing in the door of the transport at the Atoll City Docks, he surveys all that stretches before him. _Whoever named it,_ he thinks, _clearly never set foot on it_.

The air on Beaumonde is toxic. Lee can feel it in his lungs already as he slings his duffle bag over his shoulder and steps out into the port. _What a place to live_, he thinks, taking in the smokestacks spewing noxious clouds over the rooftops. Still it’s nice to get out into the open after being cooped up on that transport for the long trip.

He heads out, in search of a nearby bar—there’s still some time to kill before his father and Laura’s shuttle arrives. He weaves through the crowds, trying to keep a wide berth from the locals. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a flash of blonde hair. He can barely see the face of the woman standing by the vendor’s stall, but he knows it’s her. He can feel it in his gut. “Kara!” he calls, as he pushes his way towards her.

When she turns to face him, Lee feels his heart begin to race. The muscles in his face are aching from the grin he can’t contain. Gods, it’s been so long. Kara looks tired, weary, her hair pulled back into a short ponytail with disheveled strands hanging out—even so, she smiles and she’s beautiful.

He moves towards her, arms reaching out instinctively, when suddenly she steps back from him. The smile quickly dims. “What the frak are you doing here, Lee?”

“I got Helo’s message.” Her face is blank, confused. She doesn’t know, hasn’t been expecting him, and he can’t help but feel a little bit set up. “Look, he left me a message—he said you were going after Sharon and Hera and S—”

“And you thought you’d come riding to the rescue,” she cuts him off, already shaking her head. “No. You can’t be here, you are getting on the next shuttle back.”

Lee feels a slight churning in his stomach, it’s the first time they’ve seen each other in over a year and the first thing she tells him is to get gone. His hands clench into fists at his sides but he shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Kara crosses her arms over her chest, her biceps white where her fingers press into the flesh. Her voice drops, just audible above the din of the port.. “Look, I’m not going to let you get caught up in this. Just go, alright? I don’t know what Helo said, but this is…”

“This is what, Kara?” he asks, his hands relaxing.

“This is personal,” she says, stepping backwards towards a crush of people. “So you just go back to sitting behind your frakking desk, doing whatever the hell you were doing before you came here, because this isn’t any of your business.”

He catches a flicker in her eyes, and suddenly he realizes what this is all about, maybe what it’s always been about: she’s trying to protect him. “None of my business,” he echoes as he steps towards her. She stops, looks up at him, jaw set as they stand toe-to-toe. She isn’t about to back down. “Alright. Fine. I’ll go, but only if you can look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t need help—that this isn’t going to turn into a suicide mission when it’s just you and Helo against the Alliance?”

Kara’s gaze falters for just the briefest moment. “I’ve got backup.”

“Yeah,” he says, settling his hands on her shoulders. “You do. Kara, I’m not going to sit back and watch you try to pull off some beyond insane stunt like this. Not without me.”

The corner of her lips twitches, almost like she’s fighting back a smile. Her tongue darts out, moistening her lips, and he’s completely distracted by the tiny motion and suddenly the urge to just kiss her already is overwhelming. Blushing, he steps back.

“Besides,” he says, letting his hands fall away. “I have my own reasons for going.”

“Oh really?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“Yeah, but…” Lee tosses a glance at the sea of people around them. “Got any place a little less public where we could talk?”

Kara’s weight shifts back slightly, looking him up and down as if it’s finally sinking in that he isn’t going away. “Fine. Follow me.”

She leads him through the crowds and towards a small transport ship, leading him through the cargo bay, up a flight of stairs, and through a common area. “You can drop your stuff in there,” she says, motioning towards a hatch. He opens the door to a small, dimly lit, single bunk and drops his duffle on the bed. Kara leans against the open hatch, watching him. “So. Any more surprises Helo’s going to need his ass kicked for?”

“Well, I passed the word to my father; he and Laura are due in in a few hours from Ariel.”

The corner of her lip quirks upward again. “The Old Man’s coming?”

Lee nods, remembering the miserable tone in his father’s voice when they last spoke. “Tigh’s gone missing. I guess the Alliance got him, too.”

“Son of a bitch.” She crosses her arms over her chest again as she steps into the room. Lee glances at her, a heavy silence settling in the room, neither of them bringing themselves to speak. “So,” she finally says. “You said you have your reasons for being here. What are they?”

“Well one of the things I discovered, sitting behind my frakking desk as you put it, is that Miranda doesn’t exist.” Her brow furrows in confusion and Lee presses on. “At least according to all the legal documents. There are big gaps of missing information. Something happened out there, something big enough that they covered it up and are using the cylons as scapegoats.” He steps towards her. “I don’t know what it is, but if they’re going through all this trouble, it’s big… and we have to find out how—”

“You know there’s no going back, right?” Kara cuts him off. “Even if we do live through this thing, you can’t go back to your cushy little office job, Lee. You can’t just break into a secret government facility and walk out. You’re going to be stuck on the run for the rest of your life.” Her eyes lock onto his fiercely, almost daring him to back down, to take this one last chance and run away with it. “Can you really handle that?”

Lee lets out a frustrated huff of air, a bitter-sounding laugh. “You think I want to go back to that life?”

She pauses. “Don’t you?”

Gods, how can she really think that? Does she really not understand that ever since he turned his back on her and got on the shuttle to the Core his life has been a monotonous hell? “Of course not! I was spending my life filing papers and fetching coffee for a small-time Alliance nobody who thought all the worlds spun around him. Why the hell would I want to go back to all that when I could be here with you?”

The words are out before he can stop them. He never intended to say them, and by the look on Kara’s face she didn’t expect to hear them either. Her hands fall to her sides. He hopes she’ll say something, mock his words so he can joke them off the way they’ve done before. She doesn’t.

Lee isn’t sure which one of them moves first, but before he knows it, he has his arms wrapped around her and she’s got her arms threaded around his neck. Kara buries her head into the crook between his neck and shoulder and lets out a shuddering breath. For a moment, Lee is terrified that he’s about to wake up to the sound of his alarm clock blaring in his empty apartment; but he doesn’t and reality slowly settles in.

This is real, he reminds himself. Gods, he had been so sure he was never going to see her again and now here she is in his arms. He brushes a hand down her back as she relaxes into him. Her voice is low and soft when she whispers, “I missed you.”

A slow grin spreads across Lee’s face as he rests his cheek against her hair. “I missed you too,” he whispers back. “I missed you too.”

===========================

When her ship breaks atmo for the first time, Kara watches Beaumonde vanishing beneath them all and thinks, _It’s about frakking time._ She sets the ship’s auto-pilot to take them out of the Kalidasa system. She doesn’t want to jump until they’re out of range of Alliance sensors. The last thing she needs right now is to be attracting unwanted attention.

She steps out of the bridge, into the common area and takes a good look at her team. Adama and Roslin arrived just before Chief announced that the FTL drive was up and operational. Lee and Helo are over with Mal, sorting through the myriad weapons they’d gathered for the mission—thank the Lords for Jayne and his love of weapons. Mal’s sent _Serenity_ on to Boros to continue working on a transport job—Kara thinks of Wash, Inara, Book, Simon, and River trying to complete a job on their own and it almost makes her laugh. Sitting on the floor, Jayne is waxing poetic about the new flashkill grenades he’s gotten his hands on—the dual settings, the craftsmanship, the pure destructive power. He’s even named them.

“What’s the plan, Starbuck?” Adama asks when he sees her.

Of course they’ve been waiting to start this mission for weeks, she ought to have something resembling a plan by now. The pure fact of the matter is, she doesn’t. “We’ve got a contact down on the planet’s surface. We’re going to rendezvous with them, and figure it out from there.”

Lee glances up, a wary look on his face. “Who’s the contact?”

Kara swallows, she flicks her gaze towards Helo who is wearing a nervous expression. He knows the answer too—or rather the lack of answer. Finally, her gaze locks back on Lee. “I don’t know yet. But they’re Colonial, sent me the message over Dee’s channel, sent us a set of jump co-ordinates.”

Lee’s jaw drops slightly, staring at her in shock. “So we’re going in completely blind? Kara, we can’t. We don’t have enough information, this is sui—”

“You got a better plan?” She cuts him off before he can finish the sentence she’s been trying to hard not to think herself. Kara plants her fists on her hips, her lip cocking in a sneer. “Or you want to just sit around, think about it, not make a move until it’s too late?” she snaps. _Same old Lee._ She doesn’t say the words but she sees him flinch and she can tell they’re both thinking them.

Lee’s jaw clenches and he’s opening his mouth to say something that’ll probably make it hard for her to sleep tonight. Or ever again. But the admiral cuts him off.

“Kara’s right,” Adama says, stepping between the two of them. “We’ve wasted enough time as it is, and even if all the elements aren’t in place, there are people counting on us. People we love. Sometimes you have to roll the hard six.”

Lee looks like he’s about to start protesting when Helo cuts in. “Sharon and Hera have been gone for weeks—I don’t even know if they’re still…” he trails off and shakes his head. “I need to find them.”

Lee’s jaw unclenches, a look of empathy on his face. “We’ll find them. All of them.” He raises an eyebrow, as he gaze sweeps to Kara. “Guess we better just double up on the ammo if we’re relying on one of your crackpot plans, Starbuck.”

There’s still a few hours yet until they can jump, so Kara heads up to her shuttle to clear her head. As she reaches the stairs, she hears the Old Man’s voice behind her. “She’s a good ship.”

Kara feels a small glimmer of pride. She’s taken this clunker of a ship and breathed life back into it—with a little help from her friends. “Thank you, sir.”

“What’s her name?”

Kara flattens her hand against the bulkhead. “Her name’s _Kobol_.”

Adama smiles. “Good name.”

When he returns to sorting through weaponry with the others, Kara continues to her quarters. She sits down on the edge of her bed and stares up at the ceiling. They have to do this. She has to this. Even if she has to play the entire frakking mission by ear. She just hopes she can get everyone out of this alive.

===========================

The jump coordinates land them just out of Miranda’s orbit, out of range of any unwanted company. Once in range, Kara gets a wave containing landing instructions that bring them down to the planet’s surface. She expected this. What she doesn’t expect, however, is the man who meets them at the edge of the city. Before she can say anything, she hears Lee beside her unable to contain his disbelief.

_“Gaius Baltar?!_”

The man looks just as uncomfortable and shifty as he always has—though apparently he’s ditched the whole cult angle and, by the lab coat, Kara guesses he’s just returned to being the same old jackass he’s always been.

Jayne grunts. “Who the hell’s this scrawny piece o’—”

Roslin cuts Jayne off, her voice is sharp and to the point. “What do you want Baltar?”

“I beg your pardon?”

 “You wouldn’t be helping us if there wasn’t something in it for you.”

A dangerous energy hums between the two of them before Baltar turns to Kara. “Captain Thrace, I can get you in and out of that building,” he gestures to a tall, white stone and glass building, standing above the other city skyscrapers. “With minimal security interference. I can get you the passcodes to the holding cells. All I want in return is the rescue of one more person—I believe you know her as Caprica Six—and transport off this planet.”

“And how do you have that kind of access?” Kara steps forward, hands fisted on her hips, and Baltar takes a step back.

“I’ve been working for them. I forged some paperwork and insinuated myself into a military lab aboard the_ Dortmunder_.” He tugs at the collar of his shirt for a moment like he needs to get more air. “I had a feeling being on the inside would come in handy and it appears that I was right.”

Right now, Kara can’t really argue. Fact of the matter is, if he were going to betray them, he wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of getting them safely onto the planet. They wouldn’t be anywhere without him, and if they manage to pull off this rescue, it’ll be in large part because of him. She doesn’t like it, but Baltar deserves some kind of compensation for his part in this. “Fine. You’ve got a deal.”

He reaches into his pocket, and hands a small earpiece out to Kara. “Take this. I will deliver instructions from the security mainframe.”

She takes the earpiece and sets it into place before drawing her sidearm. Kara looks back over her shoulder at the others. “Let’s go.”

Baltar stops them about a block from the building, tells them to hold their position until further notice. Kara watches as he disappears around the corner, flashing a card to the two guards standing at the front door, before disappearing into the building.

The wait to hear anything is excruciating. She can feel her heart rate starting to creep up. It’s been a long time since she’s gone into battle on foot. She turns to survey her team; everyone is armed, Jayne the most heavily—he’s toting an enormous laser gun, which he apparently calls Vera and is carrying a sash of grenades. Even Roslin’s taken a pistol for herself—Kara can only hope she’s learned to aim a little bit better by now.

She flicks her gaze from Helo to the Old Man to Chief and Kaylee to Mal and the rest of his crew, and then to Lee beside her. Gods, they’re more than her team—they’re her family. Kara shuts her eyes, offering a quick prayer to the Lords to see them through this. If any of them die out here on this rock, it’ll all be on her. She feels something brush against her hand. She opens her eyes to see Lee watching her with concern. “You ready for this?” he asks.

“It’s now or never,” she says, giving his hand a light squeeze. For a moment, it feels like she’s back on _Galactica_ feeling that rush of adrenaline before the viper hurtles through the launch tube. With a grin, she adds, “Apollo.”

As he smiles back at her, the earpiece finally crackles to life.

_Captain Thrace, can you hear me?_

Showtime. First step, eliminate the guards.

“ ‘m on it,” Jayne says, pulling a flashkill grenade from his arsenal. As he goes to pull the pin, Zoë’s hand reaches out to stop him.

“What’s that thing set to?”

“Stun,” he says, sounding like a kid denying that he has his hand in the cookie jar. She takes the grenade from him and switches the setting over from kill to stun before lobbing it towards the front entrance. An electronic pulse flashes and the two guards drop to the ground. Kara heads out into the street, waving for the others to follow.

She rushes past the bodies, throwing the double doors open as she goes. They’re in. Her heart is pounding now as she turns to make sure the others have filed in behind her. Baltar chatters in her ear.

_Cameras are down in the main hallways. Stay on alert, doesn’t mean you won’t have some unexpected company.  _

The entire facility is a labyrinth of what feels like endless hallways, mirrors and glass and steel, all of it seems to pull her towards the center, even without Baltar’s babbling. Something about it feels inevitable. Twice she herds the group into corridors, empty rooms, to avoid the officers patrolling the building, but other than that Gaius sticks to his word and gets them to the laboratory with minimal security interference.  

There is a large steel door sealing them off from the laboratory, with a keypad to the side of it. Baltar rattles off a string of numbers—112365365321—and when she punches them in the hydraulics hiss and the door slides open. The first level of the lab appears to be empty, but after Baltar feeds her some more information about the lab—it’s been a while since she’s needed Starbuck’s planning skills, but the pieces of a plan start to click into place and she knows what needs to happen now.

She turns to address the others. “Here’s where we split up. Lee, you take Mal, Kaylee and your dad down in the elevator; it’s two flights to the holding cells. You’re the decoys.” Lee’s eyes lock onto hers and he nods, she knows he can pull this off. “Jayne, Zoë, Helo, you’re on me. We’re taking the back entrance from the stairs. Chief, Laura, make sure the stairwell stays clear, we’re going to need it to get out.”

Kara leads her team down the back stairwell, two flights, to the landing where another door is waiting for them. It has the same passcode as the door to the lab and she gets it open with almost no effort. From a few feet ahead, she can hear gunshots, and her heart instantly drops into her stomach. Has Lee been hit? The Old Man? She shakes the thought out of her head, and just takes off running, Jayne, Zoë, and Helo at her heels.

The halls of the lab twist and turn, leading them to a central atrium. Jayne lets out a burst of laserfire towards the ceiling, drawing attention away from the decoy group and towards them. It’s mostly scientists, men and women in white coats, and two soldiers plus one lying bleeding on the floor.

“Now, if y’all would kindly get on your knees, place your weapons on the ground, and put your hands behind your head,” Mal says, addressing their hostages, “we’ll be outta your hair in no time—assumin’ no one tries anythin’ heroical.”

Through the earpiece, Baltar rattles off cell numbers and access codes. Kara shouts them out, watching as the others scatter to unlock the doors ringing the room’s perimeter. Finally, he gives her the information to unlock Sam’s cell. She all but sprints to the door and punches in code. When the door slides open, she can see him sitting in the corner but looking like he’s ready to spring towards the door. A look of surprise and relief settles over his face as recognition sinks in.

“I wasn’t sure you were coming for me,” he says as he gets to his feet.

Kara steps forward, eyes already sweeping his body up and down. He doesn’t look injured or ill—got a few cuts and bruises but other than that no worse for wear—and she can’t help but grin. “You’re always making me save your ass, Sammy.”

“How the hell did you pull this off?” he asks.

Kara takes the gun she’s got strapped to her back and holds it out to him. “I’ve got backup,” she says as he takes it.

She turns to head back out but Sam catches her by the arm and pulls her back to him. There’s something so earnest about the way he’s looking at her as he releases his grip. “Thank you, Kara. Gods, if you hadn’t—”

“Forget it,” she says. The last time she saw him, they’d fought. Their relationship was never the same after New Caprica and it died on the _Demetrius._ Being together on Beaumonde started more out of desperation than anything else, she still loved him, but she knew it wasn’t enough. He deserves better than most of the crap she’s put him through over the years, but she’s never going to be able to give him the life that he wanted. “Come on, let’s just get going.”

She heads out into the atrium once again and the first thing she sees is Karl holding Hera in his arms, beaming that_ proud dad _look again. He sets her down, and then wraps both of his arms around Sharon who is standing beside him. Kara can’t quite tell from where she’s standing but she looks hurt, leaning most of her weight on one leg.

They’ve done it. They’ve actually frakking done it. Now all that needs to happen is for Baltar to follow through on getting them the hell out of there and they are home free.

Of course, that means that it’s the exact moment for the entire mission to go FUBAR. Her earpiece crackles with a loud burst of static as the line goes completely silent. From here on in, it looks like they’re on their own. “Godsdamnit!” she hisses. Something is wrong and she sure as hell doesn’t want to stick around and find out. “Come on, let’s move out.”

She hangs back, keeping her weapon trained on the hostages as the others start to file out the back entrance. She flicks her gaze over towards Lee who has stayed back with her. He turns, watching to make sure that everyone is getting out safely.  Kara catches a flicker of motion out of the corner of her eye. She can see one of the Alliance soldiers reaching for the pistol in front of him on the floor, about to get—as Mal put it—heroical.

Everything seems to happen all at once. The officer raises his gun; it’s aimed towards Lee’s chest. Before Kara knows what she’s doing, before she even hears the sound of the bullet firing, she’s sprinting towards him. Suddenly, there’s pain—a sharp burning sensation along her left bicep. She stumbles forward and two strong arms are holding her up as her knees threaten to give out on her. Then another burst of laser fire rings out and there’s the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Kara turns to see Jayne standing at the entrance to atrium with Vera in his hand. “You two comin’ or what?” He turns and heads out without another word.

“Kara?” Lee asks, letting her hold his shoulder as she gets steady on her feet again. “Frak,” he hisses, as he catches sight of the wound. “You’re shot.”

“I’m fine,” she says, trying to hide a wince. “Barely nicked me.”

Lee takes her arm, careful not to touch the wound itself. He tears off a strip of cloth from his shirt, and winds it quickly around her upper arm to stem the blood flow. Lee frowns, and she knows he’s not satisfied, but also that it’s all they can do for now. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Sufficiently terrified by Jayne’s display of brutality, none of the other hostages make a move as Starbuck and Apollo take their leave. She stumbles twice on the way back out to the stairwell, but Lee is there to steady her. Her heart is pounding and her vision is blurring as the door comes into sight, but she just keeps pushing. They’ve come so far, she can’t give up now.

When they reach the stairwell, the landing is crowded—everyone she entered with is alive, and now Sam, Caprica Six, Athena and Hera, and Saul and Ellen Tigh stand among them. Before Kara has the chance to say something she hears footsteps descending from above. She draws her gun, Helo and Sam moving to cover her in this shit tactical position. She catches a glimpse of a white labcoat before Gaius Baltar comes into view, panting, eyes wide.

“We have to go _now_!”

Farther up in the stairwell a door swings open. Kara hears shouted commands, pounding footsteps—too many sets to count, all blurring like thunder echoing in the enclosed space.

“You led them to us?!” Kara snaps, grabbing him by the lapel.

“Now is not the time for accusations!” he gasps, voice high and panicked. He is, unfortunately, right. There’s no way they can defend themselves in the stairwell, their only choice is to fall back.

She releases him with a shove. “We need another way up.”

Baltar leads them down another flight of stairs, taking them to the very bottom level of the facility. He opens the door and leads them out into a long corridor, the walls lined with metal storage crates. “There’s a secret passageway at the far end of this level. We’ll be able to get out—”

“Hera?” Kara turns to look back Athena. Her eyes go wide as she scans the corridor for her daughter, a hint of panic rising in her voice. “Hera?!”

\---To Be Continued---


	8. Chapter 8

_Frak. _

There’s no way that they are leaving without Hera, but how much time can they afford to lose? Kara throws a glance over her shoulder towards the stairwell. How long will it take for the Alliance officers to catch up to them? How long until they can find the little girl? She looks down the corridor. There’s no cover except for a few hallways branching off on either side, and gods only know where they lead. One dead end and that’s it—game over.

Kara eyes the metal containers lining the hallway, and she realizes this is their best shot. “Move those boxes,” she shouts. “Barricade the corridor, we need to hold them off until we find Hera.” She goes for one of the crates, reaching, but even the small motion sends a punishing stab of pain through her arm. “Godsdamnit,” she hisses under her breath.

“It’s okay,” Zoë says, reaching for the same crate. “We’ve got this.”

Groaning, Kara steps back, and kills time checking her ammo while the others pile up the crates—stacked two high with just enough space in between to aim and fire at the incoming soldiers—successfully sealing off the corridor. “We hold this position, no matter what,” she says, moving into position.

“Sharon? Godsdamnit!” Helo shouts, “Sharon!?”

Kara turns, glancing around, and sure enough Athena is missing. Roslin, Baltar, and Caprica Six are nowhere to be seen, either. _ Just frakking great,_ she thinks. _Wherever they’ve gone, they better come back here with that kid, ASAP_.  Karl looks like he’s about to go sprinting off when she catches him by the shoulder. “Don’t be a frakking idiot; we need you here.”

The door bangs open and the bullets start to fly immediately. Kara turns and empties her first clip hitting two soldiers—one in the leg, another in the chest. She pulls back behind the crates. So much for being the best shot. The blood loss is starting to get to her and, even as she tries to reload, her vision is blurring.

She catches movement out of the corner of her eye and sees Tigh sinking to the floor, red seeping across his shirt from a tear in the side.

Ellen moves to his side, tugging at the fabric to get a better look.  “Saul! Saul, are you alright?”

“Just a flesh wound,” he says, taking her hand. “It’ll take more than that to get rid of me.”  He lets out a feeble laugh, and Ellen gives him a small smile.

Kara flinches, hearing bullets pinging off the metal behind her head, and is immediately jerked back into the fight. As she turns to start firing again, she sees Jayne reaching for one of his grenades. “You trying to get us all killed?” she snaps.

“Tryin’ to make them all dead!” he corrects her.

“This space is too small; that thing blows, it’ll kill us all. Save it!”

Jayne groans but sets the grenade back. He hoists his gun once again firing off another burst of laser fire at the soldiers. When Kara reloads and looks back out, she can see more than half a dozen Alliance officers lying dead on the floor just in front of the door. A few others who made it through are scrambling to move wounded bodies and fall back.  The metal door slams shut behind them.

“They’ve retreated,” Kaylee says, with a bit of triumph in her voice.

“They’re regrouping,” Zoë corrects, sinking down to the floor next to Kara and leaning back against the crates.

“It’s only a matter of time before they come back with reinforcements,” says Adama as he reloads his gun.

“Why don’t we just leave?” Ellen protests. “They’re not watching us, this is our chance to make a break for it! My husband is injured!”

“Because we don’t leave anyone behind.” Helo doesn’t take his aim off the door even as he grounds the words out.

“Well, don’t you think we should go look for them instead of waiting here like sitting ducks?” A note of hysteria has crept into the woman’s voice and Kara’s hand positively itches to slap her.

“Because they know where we are,” Saul groans as he sits up a bit straighter. Adama kneels down next to him trying to get a better look at the wound. “We don’t know squat about them.”

Kara leans back against the crate, her eyes sliding shut. Godsdamnit, her head is pounding now. For a moment she wonders if they’re going to make it out of this. Baltar says there’s another exit—a hidden unused passageway—on this level, but what if they know about it? What if they’re guarding it? The longer they sit there, the more time the Alliance has to prepare. Dread sinks through her and settles in the pit of her stomach.

As though she can read Kara’s thoughts, Zoë takes that moment to lean over and give her a small slap on the cheek. “Stay with it,” she says. “No time for passing out, sir.” That one word does more for Kara than the sting on her cheek.

“Just remember,” Mal starts, “When you can’t run anymore, you crawl.”

“And when you can’t do that, you find someone to carry you,” Zoë finishes.

Kara flicks a look over to Jayne, wondering if he knows what the hell they’re talking about. He just shrugs. “Don’t ask me, I didn’t fight in no gorram wars.”  

Lee moves from the other end of the corridor and crouches down beside her. She doesn’t miss his sideways glance to her injured arm. “I don’t need you babysitting me,” she says. 

He just gets into position, taking aim at the doorway. Matter-of-factly he tells her, “You’ve got my back; I’ve got yours.”

The metal door creaks open and she can feel the collective nervous edge in the room. A thin clanking sound is heard as a small metal object slides across the floor towards the barricade.

“_Everyone fall back!_”  Kara shouts.

They barely make it around the corner into one of the hallways before the device detonates. After the roar of the blast dies down, Kara turns to check on the damage. Kaylee is on the ground, clutching at her shoulder, having been knocked off her feet by the blast. Chief hurries to her side, pulling her back to her feet.

Lying face down on the floor, just barely inside the doorway, Sam’s down. His back is covered in angry scorches._ No. He can’t die. Not here, not like this. Not when they are so close._ “Sam!” She drops to her knees next to him, rolling him onto his side and he lets out a pained hiss. He’s alive. _Thank the Lords, _she thinks. “Hey,” she says, pushing hair back from his face. He doesn’t make any kind of coherent response, verging on total lack of consciousness. “Hey, we’re gonna get you out of here, okay, just hang on.”

Jayne brushes past them, taking out two grenades of his own and hurtling them back around the corner towards the stairwell in retaliation. Two more explosions sound in quick succession and the entire building rattles.  In the midst of the chaos, Helo drops down beside Sam, pulls an arm around his shoulder and hauls him to his feet.

Kara sees figures coming towards them from the far end of the hall. Ignoring the sting in her arm she raises her gun with both hands, aiming at the unidentified intruders.

“Friendlies!” Athena’s voice calls out from the darkness. “Lower your weapon, Starbuck.” As they step forward into the light, Kara can see Sharon balancing Hera on one hip; behind her are Roslin, Baltar, and Caprica Six.

Lee takes Sam’s weight onto his shoulders, and Helo rushes forward to pull his wife and daughter into a tight embrace.

“Thank the gods,” Helo says, taking Hera into his arms.

“This way,” Baltar says, waving for them to follow him through a doorway. It opens up into a large storage room with another door at the opposite end. A small, cramped, service hallway leads to another darkened stairwell. No sound, blissfully silent, no one is guarding it. 

Up three flights of steps, the stairwell takes them straight to a delivery entrance with only three soldiers standing guard—apparently the Alliance didn’t have much faith that they’d find this way out.  Athena and Jayne take out the officers before they have a chance to call for backup, and from then on out the coast is clear.

They move quickly back out through the city. Once they are all aboard Kobol, Kara sprints for the bridge, they need to get off this rock and get medical help as soon as possible. There are injuries—but no casualties, and no one left behind either. As they break atmo, she lets out a sigh of relief. They’re home free.

========================

It isn’t until they make an emergency jump out to the Georgia system and land on Boros to rendezvous with_ Serenity_ that Lee really has the time to take in the impact of what they have just done. They’ve just sprung six Alliance prisoners from under heavy planetary guard; there’s no question that they’ve got the Alliance’s attention now—the only question that remains is whether or not the Alliance will go public with the break in, or keep it quiet while the authorities search for them.

Lee tries to push the thought out of his head for the time being.

When he makes his way out into the common area, the first thing he sees is Helo, sitting on a ratty looking couch with Sharon beside him and Hera balanced on his knee—a happy family reunion.

He hadn’t hesitated when Helo’d called and asked for help, shoving aside all the concerns that flooded his mind about the risk. He’d opted once more for the right thing, even if it wasn’t, as someone had once told him, the smart thing to do.

But now, faced with the tangible proof that they’ve done more good in a matter of hours than he did in a year slaving away on Osiris, Lee is glad he decided to ignore the smart option.

He decides to head on over to _Serenity_, check on Kara and the others who’ve been taken to the infirmary. On his way towards the cargo bay, one of the bunk doors swings open and someone calls his name. “Lee?”

Lee turns to see Caprica Six emerging from the bunk, closing the door behind her. “Yes?”

“I heard that you spent a year working undercover for the Alliance government,” she says. “What was it that you were looking to accomplish by working for them?”

“Change,” he says, as though the answer really is that simple. “But I could never convince anyone or find anything big enough to grab anyone’s attention.” He doesn’t even attempt to hide the rueful tone in his voice.

“When we arrived here, the Cylon needed to find a home the same as the humans,” she says. “The entire population of Miranda was dead when we arrived—the whole planet abandoned. It seemed as good a place as any for us to stay. We could have a homeworld again. But we never knew what happened to the people on that planet.” She pauses. “I think I might just have what you’re looking for.” Caprica draws from her pocket a clear plastic device and holds it out to him—Lee recognizes it as one used for recording holographic messages.

“What’s this?” he asks, taking it and turning it over in his hands.

“Hera lead us to a holding facility in the basement of the laboratory. Inside was a rescue-and-research ship that had been moved down there. She ran right for the holograph console, and that’s where we found this. I can’t… I can’t even describe it; you need to see it for yourself.”

As they turn for the stairs, the door to the cargo bay swings open and Mal steps through, saying he was “lookin’ to check up on how everyone was doin’ over here.”

“Captain Reynolds,” Caprica says, waving for him to follow them, “You really should to see this, too.”

Up on the bridge, Lee sets the device in the playback mechanism. Instantly, the holographic image of a woman appears. A few images of corpses flash in front of her as she beings to speak. Her voice breaks as she talks—bitterness, sadness, and anger bubbling beneath the struggle to hang on to a last shred of professionalism.

_These are just a few of the images we’ve recorded, and you can see, it isn’t what we thought. There’s been no war here and no terraforming event. The environment is stable._

The image shakes her head, offering the viewer a defeated smile.

_It’s the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting._ She pauses, swallowing hard, seemingly searching for what she could possibly say next. _And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work. They stopped breeding. Talking. Eating. There’s thirty million people here and they all just let themselves die.  
_  
A vicious roar can be heard from off-screen. The woman gasps, recoils, and attempts to turn a brave face back to the camera.

_I have to be quick. About a tenth of a percent of the population had the opposite reaction to the Pax. Their aggressor response increased beyond madness. They have become…_

She gives up on trying to hold herself together, voice breaking, tears forming.

_Well they’ve killed most of us. And not just killed… they’ve… done things. _

Beside him, Lee hears Mal murmur under his breath, “Reavers.”

_I won’t live to report this, but people have to know. We meant it for the best. To make people safer…_

She’s cut off by the sound of a door splintering. She raises her gun, aiming at an unseen target. She fires, apparently missing the mark before turning the gun against her head. Before she has the chance to pull the trigger, a thing—barely human looking—grabs her by the throat, roaring, snarling.  Lee feels his stomach churn and Caprica, thankfully, reaches out and turns the holograph off.

In that moment, Lee knows Caprica is right. This is what he has been looking for. Information like this is exactly what will bring the Alliance crumbling to their knees.  Beside him, Mal turns wordlessly and sweeps from the bridge. Lee reaches out, taking the holograph device and sliding it into his pocket before following him down the stairs, through the cargo bay, and out into the daylight.

When he finally catches up to him, there is a look of utter devastation etched on his face that Lee’s never seen on him before.  “Mal…”

“How long you think that report’s been buried?” he asks. Lee shakes his head, he just doesn’t have an answer for him. “How long do you think those people have been lyin’ there dead, with no one knowin’ what happened to ‘em?” The devastation slowly hardens into a firm resolve. “Someone has to speak for those people.”

“I know,” Lee says, closing a hand over Mal’s shoulder. “The ‘Verse needs to know what happened to those people out there on Miranda. And I know exactly who can speak for them.”

===========================

Lee gets the address from the database—a small apartment complex in the heart of Boros City. When he buzzes at the door, he hears a familiar voice from inside calling out. “Louis, did you forget your keys ag—” The door swings open. “Lee?”

“Hello, Dee.”

“What are you doing here?” She shifts in the doorway, clearly caught off-guard by his sudden appearance.

Lee draws the recording out of his pocket. “I needed to get this to you, but I didn’t want to send it over the coded channel—I know it’s hidden, but I still didn’t want to risk it.”

He holds it out to her and she takes it with an arched eyebrow. “Come on in,” she says, stepping back and holding the door open.  As he walks into the apartment, Lee hears another familiar voice.

“Dee? What’s going on?” Felix Gaeta asks as he steps into view, to Lee’s complete surprise, unsteadily but without his crutches. His eyes fall on Lee. “Major. This is a shock.”

“Sorry to just drop in like this, but it was urgent.” He casts a quick glance down at Gaeta’s right leg and Dee gives him a quick swat on the arm.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” she teases before her tone turns more serious.  “First thing after we got this apartment, we started putting money aside to get Felix a better prosthetic. If there’s one thing the Alliance does well, it’s medicine.”

“Have you been following the news?” he asks. He knows it’s abrupt but this is not a social visit. “About Miranda?”

Gaeta gets a grave tone in his voice. “We left the cylons alone and they went right back to their old ways.”

Lee shakes his head. “Then you need to see this.” 

When the holograph plays, Lee knows exactly when to turn it off.

“My gods,” Dee breathes, her eyes wide with shock. 

Gaeta shut his eyes, a stern resolve forming on his face. “Major, where did you get that recording?”

“Miranda,” he says. “When Tigh and Sharon and Sam were taken, Kara staged a rescue mission. We also found this. We’ve all seen it and Captain Reynolds’ crew agrees: The public needs to know about this. The entire ‘Verse needs to know what happened out there.” Lee holds the disk back out to Dee. “Can you do that?”

She takes it, hands firmly closing over it. “We can do it. Give us a day or so and this thing will be all over the Cortex.”

===========================

Even after the doc has patched her up, Kara loiters around _Serenity_ until Simon tells her she needs to go back to her own ship and get some rest—she isn’t doing anyone any good by pacing around outside the infirmary.  Grudgingly, she heads out into the shipyard, shining bright red in the setting sunlight.

Back aboard _Kobol_, she notices as she heads up the stairs that the Tighs, Baltar, and Caprica Six seem to have gotten themselves settled into the two cargo deck bunks.  The upper level seems like more of the same. The Agathons are together in the galley, working on getting dinner together (Hera has discovered the joys of banging on pots and pans, apparently)—Kara realizes suddenly that she is starving. Over in the common area, Adama and Roslin are sitting on the ratty old couch; Laura’s thumbing through a book she’s brought with her.

As she starts for the shuttle, she hears the Old Man’s voice calling out to her. “What do you hear, Starbuck?”

She pauses, turning back with a grin; the familiar words come easily. “Nothing but the rain.”

“Then grab your gun and bring in the cat,” he finishes with a small chuckle.

Kara steps back down the stairs, heading over to the common area. “Hell of a day, huh, Boss?”

He gets to his feet, his hands settling on her shoulders. “You did good, Kara. You put this mission together, and you got us out of it in one piece. That’s one hell of a_ good_ day.”

“Thank you, sir.” She knows this—the praise doesn’t cut through the frakking obnoxious worry that’s settled in her gut, but she puts on a smile. “Do you know where Lee went off to?”

“Last I saw, he was going to give that tape to Dee.”

Kara glances over at Roslin, still sitting on the couch, then back to Adama. “Tape? What tape?”

The two of them exchange a look before the Old Man says something about going to check on Tigh, before leaving the Kara alone with Laura.

Roslin closes her book, sliding her glasses off and folding them in her hand. “In the laboratory, we found a holographic recording left behind by a research team, some number of years ago. It implicated Alliance experimentation as the cause of death for the entire population of Miranda.” She pauses. “I can’t help but think that we were meant to find that recording.”

Kara catches her lower lip in her teeth. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Back on _Galactica_, I shared a vision with Sharon and Caprica Six. A vision of following Hera…uncannily similar to what happened in the lab today. Almost as if we were always meant to discover it.” She unfolds her glasses and slides them back on. “The only thing I can’t figure out is why.”

“Because…” Kara shakes her head. “Because once that footage gets out, everyone’s going to know what the Alliance has done.” It’s a total shot in the dark, but when she says it out loud it starts to make sense.  “It’ll be the start of their downfall… their end.” Gods, can that really be the answer? Everything that’s happened to bring them here, to reveal this? To put this set of worlds right? Despite the fact that she knows they’ve done the right thing today, the thought of it makes her hands clench into fists.

She wonders who the frak is setting the cosmic scale?

“Maybe,” Laura offers. Her tone makes Kara wonder if she’s thinking the same thing.

“Yeah… maybe.” 

Kara heads back up to her quarters and sinks down onto her bed. She tries to remind herself—they’ve done the right thing, they’ve done the right thing, they’ve done the right thing. She doesn’t know how long she sits there trying to convince herself of it when she hears the hatch open. She glances up to see Lee walk into the room.

“I heard you finally came back,” he says.

Kara shrugs as she gets to her feet. “Simon kicked me out.”

She can see his shoulders stiffen slightly, then relax as he shakes his head. “So, how is Sam?”

“Simon’s words were _critical but stable_, whatever the frak that means. He thinks he's gonna live.” Kara folds her arms across her chest. _We’ve done the right thing._ “Gods, we can’t even take him to the hospital.”

“Dr. Tam’s a great doctor. I’m sure he’s going—”

“That’s not what I meant!” she snaps. Lee visibly recoils, and she lets out a shuddering breath. “I just… no hospital will take him. He’s wanted… and gods only know about the rest of us. We may not be cylons but we’d be frakking kidding ourselves if we thought the Alliance wasn’t out there looking for us. After that tape gets out… We’re gonna have to keep moving… can’t stay anywhere too long or they might catch us and… gods only know what’ll happen then.” She squeezes her eyes shut, hands falling to her sides. “I don’t know… I can’t…”

Lee steps closer. His hands come up to cup her face, his forehead brushing against hers as he lets out a sigh. “Then don’t. Today we made it through today. Tomorrow, we’ll work on making it through tomorrow. Just take it one day at a time. We’ll figure it out. We always have.”

Kara wants to believe it can just be that easy. That they can just take off in this ship and live day to day, and just… make it work. But she’s the one that’s dragged them all out of their lives, out of their homes, and into this. Any day now, the government might come crashing down around the entire ‘Verse, leaving chaos and destruction in its wake. “So much for bright, shiny futures, huh?” she asks with a bitter laugh.

“I don’t know,” he says, pulling back and casting a look around the shuttle, before glancing back at her. “The smell of recycled air. A dozen people in the head using up your water rations every morning. Not a single minute of privacy or peace and quiet 24-7.” He shrugs, smirking. “I kinda missed it.” He doesn’t say it, but she hears it, remembers when he told her _Why the hell would I want to go back to all that when I could be here with you? _

Lee is taking a step towards her with a curious face when the intercom buzzes and Helo’s voice comes over the line. “_Hey you guys, food’s ready_!”

Kara lets out a light laugh trying to tamp down the way her heart rate’s picked up. “Come on. Let’s get down there before Karl eats it all.”

The two of them head down the stairs. Kara pauses for a moment just watching the way everyone is crammed around the table. Sharon’s got Hera perched in her lap, talking to Caprica as Helo dishes out dinner.  Unsurprisingly, the Tighs have already managed to find Kara’s liquor stash. Lee places a hand on his father’s shoulder as he takes up a seat next to him. Hell, even Roslin and Baltar seem to be tolerating each other’s presence.

_One day at a time,_ she reminds herself, taking a seat at the table. _Just one day at a time. _

\--The End--


End file.
